Sharon Watts - Reception

Reception

Sharon has been dubbed one of the "most popular" characters in EastEnders. Television critic Matt Bayliss, who once wrote storylines for EastEnders, suggested in 2010 that what made Sharon an interesting, classic, female character was that her psychology was laid bare; viewers could see how her troubled upbringing contributed to the mistakes she made and the low self-esteem she had in latter life. In December 2004 the Sunday Mirror reported that executive producer Kathleen Hutchison offered to double Dean's salary from £150,000 a year to £300,000 a year, in order to persuade her to remain in the show, making her one of the highest paid actresses in British soap opera. In a 2007 poll carried out by Inside Soap, Sharon, who was then on a hiatus from EastEnders, was voted the character that readers most wanted to see return. She also topped a 2001 poll examining 1000 television viewers' opinions of business owners. Sharon was named Britain's dream boss, topping the poll of soap star employers from the UK's two most popular serials, Coronation Street and EastEnders. In a NTL poll in 2003, one third of viewers picked Sharon's comeback in 2001 as their favourite, and in a Radio Times poll of over 5,000 people in 2004, 21% chose Sharon as the soap character they were most pleased to see return.

Letitia Dean has been nominated for multiple awards for her portrayal of Sharon. In 1995, she was nominated in the "Most Popular Actress" category at the National Television Awards. Dean was nominated for the "Best Actress Award" at the British Soap Awards in 2004, and she was also nominated in the category of "Best Dramatic Performance" for "Den's Return". At the 2005 Inside Soap awards, Dean was presented with the coveted award for outstanding achievement as homage to her work in EastEnders; at the time of the awards ceremony, she had appeared in EastEnders (on and off) for over 20 years. She was also nominated in the category of Best Couple (shared with Nigel Harman).

The character of Sharon has garnered controversy in the British media. In 1985, The Sun newspaper branded EastEnders "Too sexy for kids" and suggested it could be a bad influence on children, with Sharon touted as a reason for this. Described as a "teenage temptress" Sharon was criticised for flashing her mini-skirted legs at pub customers and fondling the bottom of a barman, Lofty Holloway (Tom Watt). Television clean-up campaigner Mary Whitehouse said, "This show should be X-rated. This kind of thing is just not on. It is an adults-only soap opera. I shudder to think of the embarrassing questions parents face from their children after Sunday afternoon viewing." A BBC spokesperson responded, "It is not our policy to be sexually provocative. It just mirrors real life in the East End of London."

In 2001, a storyline that saw Sharon confessing to her lover Phil that she was infertile was discussed in The Guardian by Jenni Murray. Of interest to the journalist was Sharon's declaration that she had become infertile because she aborted Grant's baby in 1995, and although the abortion was successful, she did not take a post-op course of anti-biotics; it was a subsequent infection that left her infertile. Of concern to Murray was the deleterious effect that broadcasting such a negative outcome of abortion may have on any female viewers considering the procedure. Murray stated: "It's easy to see why infertility as a result of abortion is manna from heaven to writers hungry for dramatic storylines. Could there be any greater irony than to abort the foetus of one man, fall in love with his brother, long to have his child and then find that the dire consequences of the first action deprive you of the delights of the second But how much poetic licence has to be employed to service these plots in which women are consistently punished for exercising their legal right to choose to abort a foetus they don't want to carry? In Sharon's case because she was running away from a violent man". Discussing the matter, Anne Furedi of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service confirmed a relatively high risk of infection from abortion, but opined that any good service provides anti-biotics and screens for chlamydia, so the risks are manageable, and the risks of hysterectomy are so rare as to be "negligible". Furedi said that women who consider abortion often feel ambivalent, guilty and have an exaggerated sense of the risks to their future fertility and she suggested that TV makers were "cruel, not just wrong to crank up those fears." David Painton, a leading authority on abortion, expressed concern that such storylines bolster the views of anti-abortionists who "claim wrongly that the procedure is dangerous". Painton stated that although it is now virtually unknown for women to have difficulty conceiving again following a termination, if their doctor instructs a course of anti-biotics to stop infection, then it is important to take the medication. Summarising the storyline and its potential impact, Murray said, "In some ways, the EastEnders story could be seen as a useful cautionary tale. Sharon was properly informed about the risk, failed to act on her doctor's advice and suffers the consequences of her own failure. The scriptwriters can't be accused of presenting a false picture, although it's hard to imagine how anyone with half a brain, told that a course of antibiotics will protect her future fertility, wouldn't take the trouble to swallow a few tablets for a week."

Discussing Sharon's initial exit in 1995, Alison Pearson writing for The Independent felt that the script, which saw Sharon misleading Grant into a reunion, was not in-keeping with the character. She commented, "In soap, character is destiny, and I have to say that I didn't really believe in Sharon's plan for elaborate revenge on Grant. It was a mechanism for getting actress Letitia Dean her freedom and not true to the nature of the character we had grown to know. You could not fault the central performances, though. Albert Square will be a less rounded place without Sharon." Conversely, reporter Matthew Bayliss was positive about the exit stating, " survived the sort of shunning normally suffered by 13th-century Welsh witches in order to wreak the perfect revenge on Grant, tricking him into publicly proposing to her, just so she could turn him down. Rarely has a character's exit been so satisfying to watch, and it was a homage to Sharon's strengths as a character that she left with so much unfinished business behind her."

When it was announced in 2000 that Sharon was returning, Bayliss received the news positively. He suggested that viewers had invested a lot in Sharon, in that they had come to believe in her, having followed her over a large number of years, transgressing from teenager to adult. He described Sharon as an engaging, complex and great soap character, commending the producers of EastEnders for bringing her back. He commented, "with a vintage original such as Sharon as latest weapon in the ratings war, it's hard to see what can go wrong."

During a period of falling ratings amid heavy media criticism aimed at EastEnders in 2004, executive producer Louise Berridge spoke to the press about reasons for viewer complaints. She claimed that one reason viewers felt EastEnders had been weaker in 2004, was because some were displeased when storylines that they "love", such as the Sharon-Dennis romance, were not featured prominently at all times. She commented, "it's disappointing to read that a large number of viewers feel the show has been weaker over this past year - although to some extent I fear this was inevitable. In a way, it has been a victim of its own success. The phenomenal popularity of the Kat and Alfie storyline was such that some viewers complained if these characters were not the centre of every storyline. A similar thing is happening with the tremendously successful 'Shannis' storyline (the affair between Dennis and Sharon) - people love it so much, hundreds are writing in demanding to see more of it."

Sarah Ellis of Inside Soap said that the magazine's staff had never been so excited as they were when they heard Sharon was returning in 2012. She said that they were "dying" to know which male character Sharon will take an interest in first. Ross Kemp who played Grant Mitchell and Steve McFadden who plays Phil Mitchell expressed pleasure at the return of Sharon and Letitia Dean in 2012, with McFadden suggesting that Letitia's former stint in EastEnders was part of a golden era of the soap opera. He described her return as brilliant.

Media reporter for The Guardian, Stuart Heritage, was critical about EastEnders' decision to reintroduce Sharon for the third time in 2012, suggesting that it meant that the programme had run out of original ideas. Heritage commented, "Even Letitia Dean has probably lost count of the times she's left and returned as Sharon. She's spent the last 18 years running away to the United States, only to come back to buy a pub or bury her mum, or to have sex with a Mitchell brother, or the other Mitchell brother, or her own adopted sibling, or to confront her inexplicably twice-dead father. Often Sharon's haircut will imperceptibly change upon her arrival, but everything else – the quivering lip, the worrying breathlessness, the consistent inability to refer to Phil Mitchell as anything other than 'Fiw' – remains the same. This is how it's likely to be this time around, regardless of if anyone actually wants her back or not There are other offenders - Bianca, Janine, Mandy, Grant – but Sharon is the worst, simply because she's so prolific". Letitia Dean defended her comeback saying, "I think with any sort of ongoing drama like EastEnders you need old blood, new blood, it just needs a balance." Steve McFadden added "What Letitia is doing is bringing back some history and you can't buy that. It takes years to build that up."