EASTENDERS newcomer Brian Conley has revealed his dad worked on the soap for 25 years – and put his posters up all over the Square.
The comedian is joining the soap as Sonia Fowler’s long-lost father Terry Cant.
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But it isn’t his first appearance in Walford as his beloved dad was one of the prop men on the soap.
Brian has told how his proud dad Colin – who also worked as a cab driver – used to put up Brian’s tour posters all over the Square.
“He would often be there a lot and post posters in the markets – you could see me in the background of a Gillian Taylforth scene,” Brian said.
And he told how he cried when he first walked onto the set.
He said: “There’s so many of my friends who are not in this position, and I cannot tell you how lucky I am.
“And that’s why when I was on that square the first time, I cried.
“Because I appreciated how many other people would die to be here and would die to just be part of the business that I personally, and so many of my friends, have grown up in.
“In two years’ time I will have been in this game for 50 years. I started professionally when I was 12.
“I went to stage school and I had my equity card at 12, and I paid my way at school doing adverts, doing this doing that.
“And so I’ve grown up and I have had serious withdrawal symptoms during this lockdown.”
Conley also revealed he has had to deliver lines while looking at a tennis ball rather than one of his fellow cast members because of coronavirus restrictions on set.
He said it is difficult “because you can’t play off” other actors and he has been rehearsing at home using tennis balls to get used to it.
“I put a tennis ball on a stick, just so that I’m used to doing it, and I even call it Sonia,” he said.
