Eastenders actor Perry Fenwick has said that the BBC soap is more daring than its rivals and deals with controversial storylines in a more brave manner.

Fenwick, who plays Billy Mitchell on the show told MSN:

“I think we dare to go a little bit further with certain stories… we’ve done the Tony and Bianca story and initially there was a bit of a kick off about that – people were saying ‘oh it’s all miserable, why are you doing that?’”

He continued: “They don’t realise that we actually get asked by charities and organisations to tackle these things because it can do a lot of good, because it’s a massive audience.

“Usually the response is, once the stories have gone out, that phone lines get jammed and hopefully we help a few people out.

“We do it to entertain and we hopefully act it well. We do all the other stuff that the other soaps do but we’re just a little bit grittier.”

Perry added that Billy is probably destined to stay miserable on the soap saying:

“They play little tricks on you. They give him a bit of fun for a couple of months, and then they pull the rug from underneath him,” laughed Perry. “You have your good-looking guys and your beautiful looking women and your b*****s, you have your so-and-sos – and I’m just a loser.”