List of East Enders Characters (1986) - Barry Clark

Barry Clark, played by Gary Hailes, is a cockney barrow-boy, and an unlikely partner for the gay, middle classed yuppie, Colin Russell (Michael Cashman). He is much younger than his middle-aged boyfriend and as such Colin's role is almost paternal. Barry is open about his sexuality to everyone except his volatile father — and when he is finally told he takes the news so badly that Barry turns straight just to appease him — although he is never very successful at it. Barry is one half of Walford's first homosexual couple. His boyfriend, Colin, had already been introduced to the show several months prior to Barry's arrival and he had proven to be an extremely popular addition to the cast. Both the audience and the residents of Walford had been kept in the dark about the fact that Colin was gay. This changed upon Barry's first scene on-screen, whereby the audience learnt that he had spent the night with Colin after picking him up the night before (off-screen) at a gay club. Colin and Barry were two of the most controversial characters of their time — mainly because gay-orientated content was still relatively rare on prime time television during the mid-1980s. Gay characters that existed were usually farcical camp parodies, created purely for comic relief, such as Mr. Humphries in the situation comedy, Are You Being Served?.