List of East Enders Characters (1985) - Debbie Wilkins

Debbie Wilkins

Deborah "Debbie" Wilkins, played by Shirley Cheriton is Walford's first upwardly mobile character. She has an on/off relationship with her ill-fated boyfriend Andy O'Brien (Ross Davidson). Andy and she tend to be a bit too pretentious for the working class locals of Albert Square. Debbie Wilkins is one of the original twenty-three characters invented by the creators of EastEnders, Tony Holland and Julia Smith. The character of Debbie along with her boyfriend Andy are an attempt by Holland and Smith to represent the influx of upwardly mobile people that were opting to move to the usually working-class areas of the East End of London. Gentrification of the East End was on the increase in the 1980s, and in Holland's experience, the new, wealthier residents were never welcomed or truly accepted within the community, and this was what he hoped to convey on-screen with these two characters.