Who's the baddy? EXCLUSIVE EASTENDERS STAR INSISTS TOT PLOT ROB'S A GOOD GUY.

Byline: By STEVE HENDRY

SINCE starring in EastEnders, Stuart Laing has been accused of being mad, bad and dangerous to know - and that's just by his reallife girlfriend.

As Walford love rat Rob Minter he has been at the heart of one of the soap's most gripping storylines.

He lured pregnant girlfriend Dawn Swann (Kara Tointon) to a house in the country before letting his deranged wife Dr May Wright (Amanda Drew) handcuff the mum-to-be to a bed and threaten her with a DIY Caesarean section.

The edge-of-the-seat episode, screened last week, drew 9.3million viewers and almost 200 of them complained - and Stuart knows where they are coming from.

He said: "I was shocked when I read the script and my girlfriend Ali has been a bit disturbed by what I've been up to.

"She's enjoyed it but she's been a bit horrified at the same time! I didn't have any idea how bonkers it was going to get.

"But it's always entertaining when you have characters behaving badly who are not gangsters or criminals, just ordinary people who have gone off the rails.

"Rob and May were going through real problems with IVF then made some bad choices which got them spiralling into this very dark place.

"It's good drama and a difficult thing to pull off when it's going out at 8pm. Although we received a lot of complaints last week nobody was trying to offend people.

"In drama you can sometimes overstep the mark."

Anyone who missed the show can breathe a sigh of relief.

Dawn escaped the clutches of the deranged couple after smashing Rob on the head with a vase and threatening DrMay with the scalpel she was planning to use for the operation.

It was the climax of a long-running plot which began with Rob having an affair with Dawn - with his wife's blessing - then offering her pounds 10,000 for her baby.

But when Dawn fell in love with Rob, he led a double life to ensure he and May would get the child they longed for. The 38-year-old actor admits it's been an intense period.

He said: "As an actor, you've got to find a way to get your head around it.

"I never thought about Rob as a villain, he's just someone who makes bad choices and digs holes he can't get out of.

"The very last turn, when it got so extreme, I put it down to him falling out of love with Dawn and his wife having this spell on him.

"He justifies it to himself by thinking Dawn wants to give the baby up anyway and she was going to take money for it.

"I think deep down he has a conscience and there is probably a part of him which is horrified but there's no going back."

He will rest easy far away from Walford when he and Amanda make their exit from the show this week.

Stuart, a familiar face from shows like Spooks, Holby City, The Bill and Wire In The Blood, has been on the soap for over a year and will miss his co-stars, although he will welcome back a sense of anonymity.

He said: "It's mad when you get recognised as you walk down the street. It can make you self-conscious.

But most of the time people are friendly. You do get some being offensive but it happens rarely. And I got broken into the show slowly.

"It's been an amazing place to work. Everyone works really hard because it's a tough schedule. But they look after you and there aren't any cliques.

"Kara and Amanda are so different and very talented and I was lucky to work intensely with both of them.

"You pray you are going to have a good relationship with people you work closely with. Luckily, both of them are down to earth, really good fun and I'll miss them a lot."

Having finished filming a couple of weeks ago, Stuart is having a rest and may even look up his Scottish ancestry. Several of his family have Scots names - his dad Donald and sisters Alison and Fiona.

He said: "My dad reckons we come from Highland boat builders. His great grandad was a Scot and it's a theme to keep Scots names in the family.

"I've no idea what's round the corner. It's all in the hands ofmy agent.

"But I have a child on Albert Square so I guess there's a possibility Rob could pop back at some time."

'I never thought of Rob as a villain ..he just makes bad choices and digs holes he can't get out of'

Stuart Laing

'After Maddie's abduction, we filmed a new ending - it was the right thing'

THE abduction of Madeleine McCann forced the BBC to reshoot the ending of the shocking storyline in EastEnders.

Stuart had just begun a holiday in Croatia when he got a phone call telling him his break was over - and he had to head back to Albert Square.

The original climax of the plot involving Stuart's character Rob, his mistress Dawn and his wife May had similarities to the disappearance of the four-year-old from her family's holiday apartment in Portugal.

Producers decided to scrap the ending - which saw Rob and May vanish with Dawn's baby - and rewrite a new one. Stuart said: "I was away on holiday with my girlfriend when I got a call from my agent saying, 'Come back because we've got to reshoot your last two episodes.'

"It wasmy girlfriend's birthday. I'd taken her away and we were disappointed. But it took us 10 minutes to think, hang on, there's far more important things at stake here.

"The original ending was fatalistic. You probably weren't going to see Rob again.

It was a much more severe, dramatic ending which I thought was fantastic. But it was the right thing to do.

"You film a couple of months in advance, so there was no inkling of the Maddie case when the scripts were written. But it could have looked like exploiting a very sensitive and traumatic real-life issue. Everyone understood why it had to be done."

SUNDAY EMAIL

s.hendry@sundaymail.co.uk

CAPTION(S):

Happy ending: Dawn (Kara Tointon) with baby Summer after her ordeal; Ender the road: Rob (Stuart Laing) is leaving the soap after pretending to love Dawn (Kara Tointon) while plotting to take her baby; Shock doc: Amanda; Still missing: Madeleine vanished

Article Details

Printer friendly Cite/link Email Feedback
Publication:	Sunday Mail (Glasgow, Scotland)
Date:	Jun 24, 2007
Words:	1077
Previous Article:	Bandits run up pounds 6000 bill; IF THE FUTURE IS ORANGE THEN I WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
Next Article:	Families' terror over rat plague.