Tom Banks (EastEnders)
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23 April 2002
4 November 2002
| Tom Banks | |||||||||||
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| EastEnders character | |||||||||||
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| Portrayed by | Colm Ó Maonlaí | ||||||||||
| First appearance | Episode 2294 23 April 2002 | ||||||||||
| Last appearance | Episode 2405 4 November 2002 | ||||||||||
| Introduced by | John Yorke | ||||||||||
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Tom Banks is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Colm Ó Maonlaí from 23 April to 1 November 2002. Introduced in April 2002 as a love interest for Sharon Watts (Letitia Dean), producers made the decision to axe the character, and he was killed-off in November 2002. The character was said to be popular with female viewers, and he was voted the eighth sexiest male character to appear in EastEnders in a 2005 poll.
The character was introduced in 2002 by executive producer John Yorke as part of Sharon Watts's (Letitia Dean) returning storyline to EastEnders. Despite first appearing in April 2002, the character was given a backstory linking him with several original characters in the series, a childhood acquaintance of Sharon, Mark Fowler (Todd Carty) and Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt). Irish actor Colm Ó Maonlaí won the role after the casting director remembered him from a previous audition.[1] Five years earlier he had auditioned for the part of Conor Flaherty, which was given to Sean Gleeson.[2] Conor and his daughter Mary (Melanie Clark Pullen) were axed in 1999 and Tom Banks was the first character of Irish descent to be given a regular role in the serial since the Flahertys' departure.[1][2]
Tom was scripted to be a love interest for Sharon. A love triangle storyline featured initially as Tom battled for Sharon's affections with her former lover Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden). In the storyline, Tom was shown to be keeping secrets from Sharon regarding his past marriage, secrets that were unveiled by Phil.[3]
In July 2002, following the introduction of a new executive producer, Louise Berridge, it was announced that Tom was being written out of EastEnders. A spokesperson denied that the actor had been fired, commenting, "He was brought in to play out a specific storyline" and that he was due to "go out with a bang".[4] According to The Mirror, EastEnders' bosses decided that there was nowhere else to go with the character, that they could not work out how to develop him and that he had fulfilled a specific role.[5] Part of Tom's exit storyline saw the character discovering that he had an inoperable brain tumour.[6] Despite the initial upset this caused to his relationship with Sharon, the couple resolved to stay together and marry. However, in a plot twist, Tom was killed off in an episode airing to celebrate Halloween in October 2002. His death coincided with the exit of another character, Trevor Morgan (Alex Ferns).[7] In the episode, Tom rushes into a house fire to save Trevor who is holding his baby and his ex-wife Little Mo (Kacey Ainsworth) hostage, but despite rescuing Mo and the baby, he and Trevor both die in an explosion. O'Maonlai claimed he cried when filming his character dying, partly due to the exhaustion of the filming and stunt work needed for the scenes. He commented, "I found working with fire tough, it was so hot. It wasn't just that I was in the heat, I also had to carry a baby and Little Mo out. I can look after myself but if I've got someone over my shoulder, it's quite freaky. I was well looked after, everybody was there to make sure it went smoothly."[8]