EastEnders’ Annette Badland tells Soaplife what happens when Aunt Babe’s exposed to the Carter clan as a drugs dealer after Tiffany accidentally takes some hash brownies to school...
Is Aunt Babe bringing trouble to the Carters’ door?
“I think she would want to protect her family from what she’s doing privately. She loves her family and she’s very proud to now have contact with them again, so she wouldn’t want to lose that.”
What do you think her family make of it?
“She offered them the chance to go into business with her selling marijuana, but they said ’no’. They don’t know the size of her operation. She involves Tina for good reasons. Tina wants to have a baby and it’s helping her with the money for that, but I think she probably regrets getting Tina involved now.”
Is she angry with Tina (Luisa Bradshaw-White) for exposing their set-up?
“She’s annoyed at Tina when it happens because she has warned her, but it’s not Tina’s fault. She didn’t do it deliberately. They were taken from her in the cafe [and handed out by an unwitting Tiffany at school].”
So why does she lie and say she’s getting rid of the drugs but give them to Dean (Matt Di Angelo) to stash?
“Babe sees it as an awful lot of money to lose! It’s her livelihood. She doesn’t really trust Dean, either, though. He’s hot-headed and young and that’s not really what she needs, but she can’t manage alone.”
Then the stash goes missing and Aunt Babe realises Shirley (Linda Henry) is behind it. How does she react?
“That’s enormous for her. She has the front of being a jolly person, but she’s furious. She can’t let that out, though. She has to reign that anger in. She won’t expose herself by being furious, she supresses it and torments Shirley with what she may do - such as tell Mick that Shirley’s his mum. She loves Shirley, but she has to protect herself…”
EastEnders, BBC1. Click here for air dates.
