Ricky Butcher
Ricky Butcher is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Sid Owen. Introduced as a school boy in 1988, Ricky is one of the longest-running male protagonists to feature in EastEnders. Owen originally left the role in 2000 to pursue a music career. However, he reprised the role in 2002 before being axed by producer Louise Berridge in 2004. In 2008, executive producer Diederick Santer introduced the character for a third time, along with his wife Bianca Jackson. Ricky is portrayed as unintelligent, simplistic, easily led and bossed around by dominant personalities. On 26 February 2011, it was announced that Owen would take a temporary break from the show. The character exited on 19 July 2011, returning five months later on 13 December 2011. Ricky left EastEnders on 17 January 2012. Ricky returned to EastEnders on 20 June 2012 for the wedding of his sister, Janine Butcher, before departing for the final time on 29 June 2012. In April 2016 he had voiced his interest in returning to EastEnders during an appearance on Celebrity Juice. He reprised his role as Ricky for an eight-week stint to tie in with the departure of his sister Janine Butcher. Ricky was onscreen from 1 December 2022 to 26 January 2023.
Creation and development
Background
EastEnders had been on air for three years before the character of Ricky made his first screen appearance in May 1988. At the time, big changes were occurring "behind-the-scenes". Co-creator Julia Smith took "a more back-seat role" as Series Producer, which allowed producer Mike Gibbon to take control of the making of the programme.The arrival of the Butcher family in May 1988 signified an end of an era for the soap, as Den and Angie Watts vacated their positions as landlord and landlady of The Queen Victoria public house, leaving the head of the Butcher family, Frank, and his girlfriend Pat Wicks to take over. Along with Frank came his two teenage children, Ricky and Diane. Later they were joined by Frank's mother Mo, and Frank's youngest daughter Janine. Owen was 16 when he first appeared as Ricky in EastEnders.
Personality
Portrayed as a soft touch and unintellectual, the character has been dubbed "thicky Ricky" by the popular press in the UK — in the serial he failed all his GCSEs. Sid Owen has discussed Ricky's intellect: "Ricky is just a sort of lovable innocent, really. He's just bungling his way through life the best way he can. All right, so he'll never win any prizes for his brain power. So what? He's a good bloke, a good mate to his friends and he can work miracles with motors What you see is what you get where he's concerned."Author Kate Lock has described Ricky as hapless and a figure of fun, "completely lacking in tact and rarely opens his mouth without putting his foot in it." Noting the changes his character went through in 2000, Owen said, " grew up over the years just as all of us have to change. He became more sensitive and more mature."
Marriage to Sam Mitchell
During the early 1990s, Ricky's narrative concentrated upon his teen elopement to Sam Mitchell. Westbrook has said that "the public couldn't get enough of the simmering relationship between Ricky and Sam and the show was inundated with calls from the press were involved in a plotline about under-age sex, so the press swooped in on that."To the anger of her family, Sam persuaded Ricky to elope to Gretna Green in July 1991. The week's worth of episodes focusing on their marriage were filmed on-location and have been described by former EastEnders scriptwriter, Colin Brake, as a "farce-like chase round the country". Written by Debbie Cook, the storyline saw Ricky and Sam's families, including Sam's mother Peggy attempting to stop the couple from saying "I do". The storyline climaxed in the registry office wedding, but despite the Scottish setting, the recording of the episodes took place in Hertfordshire. Later in the month, Sam and Ricky had a more official "grand church blessing" with all their family in attendance. The Butchers' blessing was screened in the same episode as the funeral of another character, Charlie Cotton.
The marriage was portrayed as problematic, fraught with interference from their families, lack of money, and Ricky's jealousy of Sam's partying and her modeling career, including a topless photoshoot. In 1993 Westbrook left the soap. On-screen, Sam's marriage to Ricky ended following an affair with a yuppie named Clive.
Marriage to Bianca Jackson
Ricky's relationship with Bianca Jackson has been central to his narrative; their affiliation began in 1994. Palmer and Owen already knew each other before working together on the soap, as both attended the Anna Scher theatre school. Owen has said, "We practically grew up together. We'd known each other for years. It was weird when she started on the show and we began playing the 'Ricky & Bianca Get To Know Each Other' bit. I had already spent a lot of time with Patsy. I think we were both seven when we met."The dynamics of their relationship were clear from the start, with Bianca portrayed as the dominant, bossy and authoritative partner, while Ricky was shown as the hen-pecked, dim-witted "loser" or "soft touch", comically under the thumb of his female counterpart. James Rampton from The Independent has commented, "to her eternally put-upon husband, Ricky, Bianca was a ferocious reincarnation of H Rider Haggard's 'She Who Must Be Obeyed'." Bianca was notorious for shouting the catchphrase "Rickaaaaaaay!" at her lover. It has been suggested that Bianca's catchphrase — "Rickaaaaaaay!" — transitioned, becoming "shorthand for any sort of heinous henpecking."
One of the first notable storylines featuring the couple occurred in 1995, when Ricky embarked on an affair with Bianca's "put-upon sidekick", Natalie Price. On-screen Natalie and Ricky found themselves sidelined and bullied by Bianca, forcing them together and leading to their eventual affair, which continued for several weeks on-screen, with Ricky seeing both Natalie and Bianca. The storyline reached its climax on 21 February 1995; 17.0 million viewers tuned in to witness Bianca discovering that her boyfriend was sleeping with her best friend. The characters were shown to reconcile later in the year when Ricky supported Bianca through a personal crisis — the revelation that she had unknowingly tried to seduce her estranged father David Wicks.
Various crises between the characters were featured over the following years, causing them to break up and reconcile numerous times. In the book Seeing Things: Television in the Age of Uncertainty, author John Ellis uses the couple's combustible relationship as an example of emotional intensity and pathos: "A couple like Ricky and Bianca...can have constantly sniped at each other for several episodes, for no apparent dramatic purpose except that it is the nature of their relationship. Then they will suddenly be confronted by a life-changing decision...There is suddenly a shift in emotional intensity for the audience. Every word now counts, and all the previous audience attitudes of irritation or even condescension to this 'not very bright couple'...become a feeling of utter absorption in their dilemma." The BBC has reported that Bianca and Ricky's on-off romance "captivated millions of fans", and in April 1997 22 million viewers tuned in to see them marry on-screen, one of the biggest soap audiences ever. In 2000, Owen stated that the storyline he most enjoyed in EastEnders was the build up and marriage to Bianca, because "the public's enthusiasm for the event was a great motivation". The couple have been described as "iconic".
In 1997, the couple were featured in a storyline about spina bifida and hydrocephalus, a developmental birth defect resulting in an incompletely formed spinal cord of the baby. After falling pregnant with Ricky's baby, a pre-natal scan revealed that her unborn foetus had the conditions. In the storyline, Bianca and Ricky agonised about whether to have an abortion, but eventually decided to terminate the pregnancy at 20 weeks, following the diagnosis. In scenes shown after the abortion, Bianca and Ricky were given the chance to see and hold their dead daughter, named Natasha, after the birth, and a period of heavy grief followed as the characters came to terms with what they had done. The Peterborough-based Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus helped and provided information to the programme makers during the storyline. Despite the birth of a premature but healthy baby, Liam, in an episode that aired on Christmas Day 1998, the following year the couple split following Bianca's affair, Palmer having decided to leave EastEnders.
Departure (2000)
In September 1999, it was announced that actor Sid Owen would be quitting his role as Ricky Butcher, after 12 years on-screen; his decision to leave was announced two weeks after Patsy Palmer's departing episode aired. Ricky was not killed off in the serial, as the producers opted to give the actor an open-ended storyline, enabling him to return. An EastEndersPenned scripts for Ricky's exit in April 2000 had to be rewritten to account for the absence of Mike Reid who played Ricky's father Frank. The storyline initially planned to have Frank and Ricky involved in one of EastEnders renowned two-hander episodes, but due to Reid's off-screen ill-health, Steve McFadden, who plays Phil Mitchell, had to stand in for the episode, which saw Ricky flee Walford. Of his departing episode, Owen stated that he was pleased Ricky's final scenes featured just him and Phil. He comments, "both Phil and Ricky have had babies, broken marriages and loads of ups and downs in their lives, and it was good to talk about it all in that episode. It's a brilliant script I burst out crying, really sobbing".