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
Tom Banks (EastEnders) Tom Banks (EastEnders) Tom Banks is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera "EastEnders", played by Colm Ó Maonlaí from 23 April to 1 November 2002. Introduced in April 2002 as a love interest for Sharon Watts (Letitia Dean), producers made the decision to axe the character and he was killed off in November 2002. The character was allegedly popular with female viewers who voted him the eighth sexiest male character to appear in "EastEnders" in a 2005 poll. Tom was a Merchant Marine who was friends with Mark Fowler and Sharon Watts when they were children. He also