Letitia Dean - Lean Routine

So Christmas is over and it’s back to the humdrum routine that is normal life.

And you don’t get more humdrum than Letitia Dean’s workout featuring C-List Celeb’s favourite trainer, Dee Thresher. Dee is something of an expert at whipping Eastenders actresses into shape having previously worked her magic on Natalie Cassidy and Charlie Brooks.

As you know if you regularly consult your Workout-Releasing Eastenders Actors Knowledge Sheet. Which I'm sure you do.

And this is just more of the same really. Same skippety-hop dance moves, same celeb weigh-in, same stupid pointless diet plan. It’s fine. It does what you expect it to. It just seems like Dee found a formula that works and is careful not to deviate one tiny inch from it.

Pictured: skippety-hop dance moves

The only exciting variation on the previous workouts is the unusual decision to stage the whole thing in a hall somewhere which is apparently already furnished for a wedding reception taking place later that day.

"We need to lay the tables now but don't worry, we'll work around you."

Letitia Dean doesn’t have much to say during the workout although she sounds chirpy and disarmingly posh when she does say something. Safe to say that Letitia Dean is rather posher than Sharon Watts. Although, we’re not talking June Brown/Dot Cotton variation. They’re at opposite ends of the poshness scale, those two accents.

Posher than the Queen in real life.

Eastenders’ Sharon has been on the show since the very beginning so obviously the character has been through more than her fair share of drama, heartache and misery. Because Albert Square is positively drenched in gloom and suffering. It oozes out the cracks in the pavements. They have some terrible luck those residents - maybe the square was built on the site of an unconsecrated Pearly King graveyard. There’s definitely something up.

One of her most famous storylines was when her husband, Grant, found out she’d shagged his brother, Phil. Because you can’t just stop at one Mitchell brother, you know? They’re like Pringles. The affair was referred to as “Sharongate”, obviously. Odd to think that if Watergate happened now, we’d call it Watergategate.

Sharongate wasn’t the best Sharon-based storyline, though. You have to go way, way back for that. In 1986, the show’s producers decided what Eastenders really needed was a long drawn-out storyline featuring a battle of the bands competition and every single teenager in the cast creating a pop act in order to strive for music stardom.

You just don't get teens like this any more. I'm not sure you ever did.

It was a stupid decision, obviously. It’s a wonder that Eastenders ever managed to have itself taken seriously when entire chunks of episodes were given over to Letitia Dean and Paul Medford (Kelvin) singing the whole of their teen-tastic pop tune “Something outa Nothing”

You’d have thought they’d be a shoe-in with that number under their belts but artistic differences meant that Simon Wickes left the band (cunningly named “The Banned” – do you see what they did there?) and sang his own number “Every Loser Wins” which became an actual real-life hit for actor Nick Berry. He didn’t have all the glory, though. Berry may have reached the showy heights of Number 1 but Letitia Dean managed to reach a very creditable No.12 with “Something outa Nothing.”


Another example of a big chunk of a prime-time BBC show being used to showcase a pop release.  Simon Cowell is clearly missing a trick, here.

So Letitia Dean’s not just an actress and former Strictly Come Dancing contestant, you know. She’s also a One Hit Wonder.

She has very square knees.

I suppose I should return to talking about the workout DVD in question but I’m really not sure I can be bothered. Maybe it’s a post-Christmas thing. Life has been too damn exciting lately. The decorations are still up. There are Quality Streets in little festive bowls. I am now the owner of a FREAKING LED JELLYFISH MOOD LAMP.


Behold the amazingness!

I have been spoiled by awesomeness. Perhaps next week, when the dull drudgery of real life has fully kicked back in, I will appreciate the craftsmanship of a DVD in which two women jump around a bit. But today is not that day. Sorry, Letitia. Blame those Cockney Ghosts.