JOE Swash reckons his exit from EastEnders was the soap’s worst ever.
The lad chats to his I’m A Celebrity…South Africa campmate Dean Gaffney about both their experiences on Albert Square on tomorrow night’s episode.
And he sends a come and get me plea to BBC bosses, 12 years on from his last appearance as Mickey Miller.
Carol asks him about a return to Walford and Joe replies: “I wouldn’t mind it.
“You know exactly what you’re doing, when you’re doing it, how you’re doing it.
“But they’ve never asked me mate, not once.”
Adding that he wishes he had had an explosive death storyline, Joe goes on: “I had the worst outro ever! I didn’t even leave at the end of the episode.
“So usually you leave at the end of the episode and you get the ‘doof doof’.
“Mine, I went to Norwich to be a bell boy at a hotel and mid scene I just walked into the Vic and went, ‘Right, see you later’.
“They turned back to Phil, turned back to me and I’d gone.
“I was like ‘What, that’s it?’
“I was there five years and not one doof doof!”
Joe played viewer favourite Mickey for five years from 2003, then reprised the role for two episodes in September 2011 to coincide with on-screen brother Darren’s departure.
Towards the end, Joe told how he felt scriptwriters had made the character little more than “light-relief” but expressed his exit storyline always felt like he had “unfinished business” on the show.
A few months after leaving in 2008, Joe entered the I’m A Celebrity camp and emerged King of the Jungle which set him on the path to TV presenting.
Joe continues in the Bush Telegraph on tomorrow night’s edition of the all stars special: “People think I can phone up EastEnders and go, ‘I’m ready to come back now guys’.
“They have not phoned me. Let me make this clear… EastEnders have never phoned me to get me back on the show.”
It comes as this week Joe’s sister Shana, who played his on-screen sister Demi, this week told the Check It TV podcast: “We were never killed off, there’s always an opportunity to come back.
“EastEnders are very good at that, bringing back characters you’ve forgotten about.”
Rita Simons last week brought her character Roxy Mitchell back from the dead to return to the soap.
Watch the scenes tomorrow at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
