David Witts has of course recently made his debut in EastEnders as Joey Branning, the estranged son of all round baddie Derek Branning…

And in forthcoming episodes, Joey is going to give some credibility to the nature versus nurture theory when, just like his career criminal dad, he lets his fists do all the talking.

We’ll soon see Joey’s propensity towards violence when, having witnessed a stranger coming on rather heavily to troubled teen Lucy Beale (Hetti Bywater) Joey floors the man with one knockout punch, much to Lucy’s horror…

But that said, while she tells Joey that she doesn’t condone violence, she can’t help but feel attracted to him, and he’s quite rapidly turning into her knight in shining armour, because he’s also set to help her out by getting Derek (Jamie Foreman) off her case too.

Derek has of course been extorting money from poor Lucy, who’s been powerless to stop the thug, given that she’s holding the fort with all of her dad Ian’s (Adam Woodyatt) businesses and taking care of her brother Bobby.

However, aside from Joey planting Lucy’s would be suitor, we’ll also see him riling up dad Derek by agreeing to attend a family meal along with his sister Alice (Jasmyn Banks) but Joey of course has a plan to disrupt the whole thing, and to that end, he invites Lucy, Fatboy (Ricky Norwood) Whitney (Shona McGarty) Tyler (Tony Discipline) and Anthony (Matt Lapinskas) along knowing how much it will irritate his father.

And sure enough, as Joey fully expected, when Derek’s angry enough, he immediately gets violent, trying to land a punch on his son while a smug Joey merely laughs at his dad, knowing that in Alice’s eyes, Derek has well and truly blotted his already rather stained copybook.

I wonder if Joey has any concept of just how similar he and his dad are, given they’re prone to violence, experts at manipulation and determined to get what they want, irrespective of who they hurt to so!

It’s going to be interesting to see how this all pans out isn’t it?!