EastEnders (Mark Thrippleton); wheeler-dealer Vince Johnson (Hepburn Graham) and Laurie Bates (Gary Powell), who became Pete Beale's (Peter Dean) sparring partner. The majority of "EastEnders" characters are working-class. Middle-class characters do occasionally become regulars, but have been less successful and rarely become long-term characters. In the main, middle-class characters exist as villains, such as James Wilmott-Brown, May Wright, Stella Crawford and Yusef Khan, or are used to promote positive liberal influences, such as Colin Russell or Rachel Kominski. "EastEnders" has always featured a culturally diverse cast which has included black, Asian, Turkish, Polish and Latvian characters. "The expansion of minority representation
EastEnders in popular culture three in the third series of "Little Britain" in 2005. The sketch primarily focused around the character Marjorie Dawes telling her Fat Fighters group not to mention the fact that Martin is in "EastEnders", then mentioning it herself. In the Comic Relief special of "Little Britain", the character Dennis Waterman refers to his "daughter - the one in "EastEnders"". This is a reference to the real actor Dennis Waterman, who is the father of Hannah Waterman, who played Laura Beale in the show. In one episode of children's show "TMi", featuring an interview with Matt Di Angelo (Deano Wicks) and