Dot Branning - Reception

Reception

According to author Pauline Frommer, Dot has been embraced by the viewing British population as a cultural archetype. Brown has suggested that Dot has universal appeal because everybody knows a person like Dot. In 2009, a poll by magazine Inside Soap named Dot as the UK's 'greatest gossip' in a soap opera.

Brown was nominated for the 'Best Actress' BAFTA award for Dot's single-hander EastEnders episode in 2009; she became the first soap actress nominated in the category since 1988, when Jean Alexander was shortlisted for her role as Hilda Ogden in Coronation Street. The show's executive producer, Diederick Santer, described Brown's BAFTA nomination as his proudest moment of 2009, saying: "I'm not one to complain to the referee, but it's beyond me why she didn't win. Week in, week out, she turns out amazing performances. The audience knew it and we knew it. With the greatest respect to the actress who won, you could hear the audience in the Royal Festival Hall that night sigh with disappointment. It was a missed opportunity by BAFTA – of which I'm a member – to connect with a big audience." Brown has also won 'Best Actress' for her role as Dot at the Inside Soap Awards in 2001 and 2004, as well as the 'Outstanding Achievement' award in 2003, and 'Best Couple' in 2005 with John Bardon, as Dot and Jim Branning. She and Bardon also won 'Best On-Screen Partnership' at the British Soap Awards in both 2002 and 2005, while in 2005, Brown won a 'Lifetime Achievement' award for her role, again at the British Soap Awards. The role also resulted in several award nominations including a 'Most Popular Actress' nomination at the National Television Awards in 2005, and a 'Best Actress' nomination at the 2007 TV Quick and TV Choice Awards among others. Dot was also voted the 46th best television character in a television poll entitled The 100 Greatest Television Characters.

During 2003, a promotional advertisement for the BBC featuring a character, Fizz, from the children's television programme The Tweenies pulling off a mask and morphing into Dot received complaints. Parents complained that their children were having nightmares and the BBC subsequently moved back the screening times. At the time of the 2005 UK General Election, Labour chiefs feared that an episode of EastEnders in which Dot learned to drive could distract viewers from voting. In the same year, Dot was criticised as revealing an anti-religious bias on the part of the BBC. Dr Indarjit Singh, editor of the Sikh Messenger and patron of the World Congress of Faiths suggested that Dot's endless quoting from the Bible served to ridicule religion. The character has been cited as an example of anti-Christian bias in the media. The BBC were accused of portraying Christians as old-fashioned in 2008 after an episode aired in which Dot asked a gay, male couple to stop kissing. The BBC responded, "EastEnders aims to reflect real life, and this means including and telling stories about characters from many different backgrounds, faiths, religions and sexualities." In a report to the BBC’s Board of Governors in July 2004 regarding religion, Dot was used as an example of how religion can be portrayed as stereotypical "out-of-date and occasionally offensive" in drama and entertainment output, that Christian figures are highlighted because of their faith "rather than seen as normal people who also have a religious belief". It was suggested that some Christians think Dot "is made deliberately unappealing to audiences by her eccentric traits and hypocritical behaviour". However, it was also suggested that others think she is convincing.

Brown's single-hander episode of EastEnders received much critical acclaim. The Guardian' Nancy Banks-Smith deemed Brown possibly the only member of the cast with the exception of Barbara Windsor (Peggy Mitchell) capable of carrying such a monologue. Robert Hanks for The Independent wrote that "I don't ever remember hearing anybody on a soap talk like this before. I mean, like a real person, with real feelings, such as self-pity and a desperate urge for self-preservation. Brown conveyed the seedy gloom of it all beautifully, as well." Conversely, Tim Teeman posed the question in The Times: "I know she’s a national institution and June Brown plays her like a dream, but was last night’s Dot Cotton extravaganza really that great? Or even necessary?" Teeman opined that: "Quite rightly, the producers want to eke as much gold out of the character and actress as possible: both are fantastic. But this was much-loved character overkill." He deemed Dot a "soap icon", however assessed that:

This was a tour de force for sure – but an indulgent one. It didn’t unlock anything substantially new to Dot. Far from making us care more about Dot – we do anyway, it was preaching to the converted – it was a little, well, dull. Boring even. he episode revealed a nagging weakness: Coronation Street has a fine repertory of older characters and actors which gives the show its wonderful link to the past. In EastEnders, the same gatekeeping roles are played by Dot and Ian Beale: she is a jewel but, as she said, an all-too lonely one. Cherish her, absolutely, but don’t turn her into a drag act.

The Daily Telegraph's Gerard O'Donovan agreed that "June Brown, as Dot, was mesmerising", but was similarly critical of the episode as a whole, concluding: "Overall the feeling couldn’t be avoided that in the greater scheme of things this was a fuss over nothing. Had it been a swan song, it would have been a worthy one. But doubtless Dot will be out and about again tonight, fag in hand, quoting from the Good Book. Enjoyable as this Albert Square indulgence was, I suspect that most fans will be hoping this one-hander remains a one-off." Leigh Holmwood for The Guardian suggested that viewers may have agreed with O'Donovan's assessment, highlighting the fact that the episode received only 8.7 million viewers, compared to 9.4 million watching EastEnders the previous week. A 2003 episode centred around Dot also resulted in a notable ratings slump. The New Year episode, which detailed her childhood evacuation to the countryside, received just 8.1 million viewers, compared with 12.2m the previous evening and 16m on Christmas Day. Prior to this, however, a 2002 two-hander episode featuring just Dot and Sonia Jackson (Natalie Cassidy) was watched by 11.5 million viewers, with an almost 60% share of viewers in the timeslot.