Cast cull for EastEnders as four actors depart

The exits are part of a shake-up down at Elstree.

EastEnders boss Chris Clenshaw has culled four actors from the soap.

The four departees are Ricky Champ (Stuart Highway), Dayle Hudson (Peter Beale), Barbara Smith (Dana Monroe) and Kelsey Calladine-Smith (Jada Lennox).

Details of how the four will go are being kept under wraps for now. Metro.co.uk reports that one of the four has already filmed their final scenes.

An insider noted of the shake-up:

“Whenever a new boss comes in, there is always going to be big changes and it’s no different with Chris. He has been working hard behind the scenes since January and is really planning to shake things up, which means saying goodbye to some characters.

“It’s nothing personal to any of the cast going, it’s simply a creative decision – for big storylines to happen you have to say goodbye to people, that’s the nature of soap.

Ricky Champ as Stuart Highway

Ricky first appeared as the childhood friend of Mick Carter (Danny Dyer) and older brother of Callum Highway (Tony Clay) in May 2018. A grudge-bearing, mentally-disturbed Stuart came into the soap hellbent on destroying Mick’s life.

The writers took Stuart in a less villainous direction after he was paired up with Rainie Cross (Tanya Franks), with recent plotlines focusing on his fight with breast cancer and his struggle with post natal depression.

Barbara Smith as Dana Monroe and Dayle Hudson as Peter Beale.

Dayle has been on screen as the seventh incarnation of Peter Beale since February 2020. His storylines have included tentatively reconnecting with his brother Bobby (Clay Milner Russell) after what happened to Lucy, a number of short-lived romantic liaisons, and looking after the Beale empire while Ian has been MIA.

On screen, Peter is about to get close to fellow departee Dana despite her being the former girlfriend of Bobby.

Barbara made her first appearance as Bobby’s love interest Dana in April 2021. In addition to her relationship with Bobby, Dana’s storylines have seen her in conflict with her extremist brother Aaron (Charlie Wernham).

Kelsey Calladine-Smith as Jada Lennox

Kelsey made her first appearance as Jada in November 2021 when it was revealed that she was behind the abandoning of a baby on Sharon Watts’ (Letitia Dean) door step. It was soon revealed that Sharon’s son, Dennis Rickman Jnr (Bleu Landau), had fathered Jada’s daughter, Alyssa, before his death.

Jada’s storylines have seen her come to terms with motherhood with Sharon’s help.

“Chris has some really big stories planned and viewers will see his stuff starting to air over the summer. He’s really keen to take the show back to its roots, build up the clans again with some big explosive long-running stories. It’s an exciting time to be on the show,” the insider added

The news follows reports earlier this week that actress Danielle Harold is being written out of the soap after playing Lola Pearce for seven years.