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Anorak News | A Glassing Jaw

A Glassing Jaw

by | 31st, August 2004

‘“EASTENDER GLASSED” is a headline right up with in the sensation stakes with “GLASWEGIAN DRINKS STRAIGHT FROM BOTTLE”, “SCOUSER NICKS HUBCAPS” and “FOREST OF DEAN LOCAL SAYS ‘I DIDN’T KNOW SHE WAS MY SISTER’”.

‘And…cut!’

Even when you hear, via the Sun’s front page, that the East Ender in the line of fire is Ray Panthaki, the story seems like no big deal.

If the Mail has taught us anything at all, it is that we live in a terrible place where being glassed and glassing has taken the place of a firm handshake.

But reading on, we learn that Panthaki is known to tens of telly fans as Ronny Ferreira, not a genuine cockney geezer at all but an actor in the EastEnders soap opera.

The Mirror puts the same story on its front page, but it’s the Sun that has obtained the script of the incident that occurred last Sunday night in the VIP suite at Faces nightclub, Gants Hill, Essex.

The scene begins with Ray sipping a drink with former EastEnders actress Brooke Kinsella.

A girl comes up and tells Ray that the Ferreira family are “rubbish”.

He asks her to leave him alone.

She throws a drink in his face.

Bouncers eject the TV critic.

Critic’s boyfriend steps up to Ray and smashes a bottle into his face.

Cut! Cut! And, er, cut!

But don’t worry if you didn’t get it all, because chances are high that the above scene will soon appear in the soap opera proper.

EastEnders is but a mirror to reality, and what goes on in real life, also goes on in Soapland.

Just listen to the show’s June Brown using the Sun to tell all and sundry about how her own trauma at finding a lump on her breast has stood her in good stead when it comes to portraying her character, Dot Cotton’s, battle with cancer.

Only, June’s lump was merely a cyst, which may or may not account for the chasm that exits between Dot’s illness and the reality of it.

But at least when Ray is glassed for our entertainment, it’ll look like the real deal. Although, many of the show’s fans are hoping he’ll be axed…’



Posted: 31st, August 2004 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink