Adam Best (EastEnders)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
10 September 2009
19 July 2010
| Adam Best | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EastEnders character | |||||||
 | |||||||
| Portrayed by | David Proud | ||||||
| Duration | 2009–2010 | ||||||
| First appearance | Episode 3856 10 September 2009 | ||||||
| Last appearance | Episode 4036 19 July 2010 | ||||||
| Introduced by | Diederick Santer | ||||||
| |||||||
Adam Best is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by David Proud, the first adult actor with a visible disability to appear regularly in the soap.[1] Both Proud and his character live with spina bifida. The character made his first appearance in the episode broadcast on 10 September 2009 and his last in the one broadcast on 19 July 2010.
Casting
Adam is the son of character Manda Best, played by Josie Lawrence. Both the character and the actor have spina bifida and are wheelchair users.[1][2] He was introduced as part of a series of measures by the BBC to raise the profile of disabled actors.[2] He began filming in June 2009 and appeared on-screen from September 2009.[1]
Speaking of his casting, Proud said he is "delighted and honoured to be joining such a talented cast [and] very excited and looking forward to bringing the character to life."[1] The show's executive producer, Diederick Santer, said it was "about time" the show cast an adult actor with a disability, as up until Proud's casting, all disabilities in the show had been portrayed by children or non-disabled adults: "In recent years, we've had a number of regular and guest characters with disabilities, some of them children like Janet Mitchell [who has Down's syndrome] and more recently Syd's son, Noah [who is deaf]. We've also told the story of Jean Slater who suffers from bipolar disorder. But this is the first time we've had a regular adult character with a visible disability played by an actor with a disability. It's about time."[1]
In an interview with magazine Disability Now, Proud said he was offered the part of Adam at the same time as wondering whether a regular part would come up: "It was spooky the way it all worked out."[3] He went on to say: "To move representation of disability in the media forward is something I take a lot of pride in. It is one of those lovely bonuses of doing what I do, you feel like hopefully if you do it right you're encouraging more disabled people to get into acting and not just increasing people's awareness of disability," and said he is not worried about the inevitable narrow-mindedness of some of the EastEnders audience: "Someone once said, 'If you can't laugh at yourself you're missing the joke of the century'. You will always get some people that disagree with the majority but I don't think it's their opinions that would matter to me."[3] Proud also said that the programme's sets may cause problems for the character, but will serve to highlight them: "We haven't tackled the height of the Queen Vic bar yet! But it's all representative, I mean, the world isn't accessible, and it's important that the set highlights this for my character."[3] Although the character's spina bifida is not the focus of his storyline, he still has to deal with other people's reactions to his disability.[4]
Personality
The character is described as "a 20-year-old self-obsessed, snobbish Oxford University student,"[1] though Proud disagrees with this assessment of the character's personality, saying, "The word I would use is 'spiky'. He's lovely and refreshing, not a stereotype, a very unique character. There's lots of potential with him. He does ruffle feathers and stuff but I think the response [to him] is going to be good."[3] He added that the character is ambitious and driven by success, and that he is "hard to be friends with."[4] He said he was happy about the fact that the character was not "too nice".[5] Santer said that the character would be "interesting, but possibly irritating".[6]
Departure
On his departure, Proud said: "I have had a wonderful time at EastEnders and loved every minute of it over the last year. It has been fantastic to play such a complex character like Adam. I have made some great friends amongst the cast and crew and wish the show all the best for future."[7] His final episode was broadcast on 19 July 2010.