EastEnders' unlucky-in-life Barry Evans is fondly remembered by fans of the BBC soap and it seems that The One Show host Alex Jones feels the same way, as she accidentally called actor Shaun Williamson by his character's name while interviewing him.
Shaun appeared on The One Show on Tuesday evening (18 August) ahead of a classic EastEnders episode airing on BBC One and as the interview came to an end, Alex slipped up and called him "Barry" before quickly correcting herself.
Thankfully, the actor saw the funny side and laughed, before Alex said, "It was bound to happen".
It's not the first time this has happened to Shaun either as he also opened up about his role on sitcom Extras, with guest Paul Whitehouse joking that he 'milked' the character of Barry.
"It was Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant and they were the two hottest writers on the planet," he said. "When they said, 'Do you want to be in Extras, but you'll be known as Barry, you'll be shining shoes, you'll be a comically unemployable version of yourself'... 'Yes, okay then!'"
Shaun played a fictional version of himself on Extras but the show made a running joke about nobody, not even his own agent, being able to remember his real name and instead calling him "Barry off EastEnders" – which of course made Alex's mistake very appropriate.
Shaun also spoke about the "sink or swim" nature of joining the soap while praising his veteran co-stars Barbara Windsor (Peggy Mitchell), Pam St Clement (Pat Evans) and Mike Reid (Frank Butcher) for their performances in the classic 2000 episode which saw Peggy discover Frank and Pat's secret affair, which aired again tonight.
"They were lovely people, don't get me wrong, but when you went on set for the first time you've got people like Barbara Windsor, Mike Reid, Wendy Richards," Shaun said. "These were huge stars even before they went to EastEnders... so this was no place for a shy retiring wallflower. You had to just get on with it and prove that you belonged there really.
"It's weird because I made about 700 (episodes), you don't remember that many of them. It's really weird to watch them all again.
"But episodes like this didn't come along every week. This was a special episode. You had the four big beasts, big actors, performing to a brilliantly written script, and doing it fantastically."
EastEnders: Secrets from the Square continues next Monday (August 24) at 8pm on BBC One with Linda Henry and Luisa Bradshaw-White discussing the Carter family, followed by a second episode on Tuesday at 7.30pm with Jessica Plummer, Toby-Alexander Smith and Lorraine Stanley.
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