A dog being replaced in ‘EastEnders’ has made front page news:
We’ll admit we rolled our eyes just like you are doing now when we first saw this story, but actually it’s filled with more drama than a real ‘EastEnders’ storyline.
For context, the Staffie cross who plays Walford’s newest pooch Bronson has been axed from the soap (via The Sun).
This is him:
He joined the soap back in May, when his on-screen family, the Taylors, moved on to Albert Square.
Cyrus (the dog who plays him) had only been in the job a few months when he needed to an operation - only to be dramatically cut while on sick leave
He’d taken some take away from filming on the soap to have surgery on his knee, only to find he didn’t have a job after he’d recuperated.
But that wasn’t because the character hadn’t been axed, oh no - Cyrus has been REPLACED by his understudy
A new dog, who was standing in for Cyrus while he was off sick, apparently impressed so much that he’s now bagged the role on a full-time basis.
Ouch.
Apparently, the replacement dog has better acting chops
Cyrus’s owner was told the stand-in responds better to commands like “sit”, and “wait”.
We really hope they hold human actors on ‘EastEnders’ to this standard too.
The dog’s owner is furious and wasted no time in telling The Sun so:
“It’s cruel, he’s been treated unfairly. It’s a ridiculous decision because Cyrus is 100 per cent trustworthy and reliable. I was led to believe he’d be able to come back. But the agent rang on Thursday to say the back-up dog was fantastic.”
- Dog owner Caroline King
Sorry, this dog has an agent?!
Said agent then issued the most brutal response, as an apparent war of words began:
“This is absolutely silly - it’s a dog in 'EastEnders' for goodness’ sake. This dog can’t do the work and isn’t fit for purpose. The dog didn’t fulfil the contract. The back-up is doing what it didn’t.”
- Kay Weston of Animal Ambassadors
“Not fit for purpose”(!)
And while the dispute between the owner and the agent looks set to rumble on, an ‘EastEnders’ spokesperson didn’t really seem like they wanted to get involved
They simply issued this statement:
“It’s not uncommon in a continuing drama for an animal to be recast.”
- an 'EastEnders' spokesperson
Clearly the phrase “that’s showbiz” extends to pooches now too.
The whole saga was certainly amusing the people of Twitter:
And here was us thinking these ‘EastEnders’ recastings were dramatic:
Catch up on all the latest soap news and spoilers here.