Blast from the Past! Eastenders’ Roger Sloman (Les)
Eastenders’ Les Coker may have retired from the funeral business, but Roger Sloman hasn’t lost his touch…
They may have looked like an old-fashioned couple, but Les and Pam Coker turned out to have some very modern issues – not least the fact Les was secretly a crossdresser. Inside Soap always thought the Cokers’ departure from Walford was a premature one, so the first thing we tell star Roger Sloman when we talk to him is how much the Cokers are missed…
“That’s very kind,” says the 70-yearold actor. “I’ve been amazed by how open and generous people have been. It was a chancy thing to do, making Les a cross-dresser, but it worked out. Viewers were moved by it and also gripped by the story, which was nice. I think the world has moved on and people are a lot more tolerant of different lifestyle choices than they used to be.”
The fact that Les had a secret was teased for a long time by the Eastenders team, but behind the scenes, Roger and his screen wife Lin Blakley did their research. That led them to spend time with a couple who’d had the same experience as the Cokers, and who helped them to tell the story right.
“Lin and I spent time with this couple and also their friends,” explains Roger. “We had some very nice feedback from them after the scenes aired to tell us they were very happy with how Eastenders had portrayed the story and how the whole thing had been handled. That really meant a lot to us.”
It wasn’t just Les’ cross-dressing storyline that demanded Roger and Lin learn more about a world they hadn’t been a part of before. As Walford’s first undertakers, they had to find out more about the death business.
“I found that part of Les’ character so interesting,” Roger tells us. “I loved investigating the job of the undertaker, and thinking about a man who spends a lot of his time with people at their most vulnerable. We had an adviser, a funeral director from Stepney. Lin and I went to his funeral parlour and got wonderful advice from him. I never did any of the work, but now I know the process, how to lay the body out and prepare it for makeup. At a push, I could embalm a body for you if you needed me to!” After spending his time in Walford contemplating the end of people’s lives, Roger’s done a complete U-turn – his latest project is about youth. He’s starring in a stage play called Seventeen, in which he and a group of veteran actors play teenagers about to begin their adult lives.
“It’s quite useful that
I’ve recently spent time in Eastenders working with young people – I’m used to being around them,” says Roger. “That said, there’s not much difference between being 17 and 70 in your head. As a teenager, I was always the joker and tried to make people laugh. I remember dancing with a girl and spending the entire time telling her about a friend of mine. I kept thinking, ‘Why on earth aren’t you telling her about you?’. So you couldn’t exactly describe me as an alpha male back then!” Seventeen has received rave reviews, and Roger says he is looking forward to welcoming a special guest soon – Lin. “We’re in touch all the time,” he tells us. “We like to meet up for a cup of tea, and she’s coming to see the play. When people spot us, they love the opportunity to grab a photo. It’s really very nice!”