After last night’s fully live episode of EastEnders, Adam Woodyatt, who plays Ian, praised 12-year-old actor Eliot Carrington for his performance as Bobby Beale. But who is the young lad that everyone’s talking about?
Eliot has been singing, acting and dancing from the age of four when he joined drama school Stage Coach and it wasn’t long before he landed his first TV role. Although he wasn’t seen on screen, he provided the voice of a young boy in the Sky 1 drama, The Take, which was based on the novel by Martina Cole and starred film actor Tom Hardy and Endeavour star Shaun Evans.
A year later he appeared in the musical Billy Elliot in London’s West End.
'I joined the show in March 2009 and performed before an audience of 1600 people 3 to 4 times every week for 6 months,’ says Eliot, on his website. ‘I loved the role and decided to start Ballet and Tap so that I could eventually be trained to take the lead role and be Billy Elliot.’
In September 2009, Eliot began to make a name for himself on TV with roles in the Channel 4 drama Utopia, Casualty and the 2013 BBC1 drama Frankie alongside Broadchurch star Eve Myles. He’s also appeared in various adverts and has provided the voice of Charlie’s best friend Marv in the animated CBeebie series Charlie and Lola.
In 2012, Eliot appeared in supernatural drama Switch, which followed four witches living in London. His EastEnders co-star Lacey Turner, who plays Stacey, had a lead role in the ITV2 series.
On his website, Eliot, who was born in August 2002, says that his favourite films include Star Wars and Oliver, and names Brad Pitt and Russell Crowe among his favourite actors.
Eliot joined EastEnders in November 2015 when Executive Producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins recast the role which was previously played by three other young actors.
