Inside Gossip
The Ballum wedding is on! And there’s drama ahead...
We’ve seen Ben and Callum starting the preparations for their big day in earnest, and Inside Soap can reveal that EastEnders is currently filming the much-anticipated wedding episodes! But will it prove to be the happy-everafter that the pair are hoping for?
As we all know, the Mitchell family could start a row in an empty room, yet it seems that it might be Callum’s side of the church who’ll be bringing in the drama. We’ve already seen him and Ben debate whether or not to ask Callum’s abusive dad Jonno to the wedding – and although Callum decided not to extend an invite, word has certainly got out to the rest of the family, with the news that we’ll see his grandma Violet on the big day.
Veteran actress Gwen Taylor joins the cast as Vi Highway, who’s set to ruffle a few feathers with her straight talking.
“Violet’s a tough nut,” says our Square insider. “She won’t be fazed by the Mitchells, and will have no qualms about putting them in their place! She hasn’t spent a lot of time with her grandsons Stuart and Callum over the years, so is she keen to make up for lost time?”
Gwen is no stranger to tough soap roles, previously playing Corrie’s Ann Foster, who killed Carla’s rapist Frank Foster – despite the fact he was her son! Gwen says she’s thrilled to be heading to Walford. “I remember when the first episodes of EastEnders launched and I was desperate to be in it – and now, after all these years, here
I am playing a wonderful character,” says the actress, who is well known from her roles in hit series such as Duty Free and A Bit Of A Do. And it seems that Gwen – and Vi – may hang around after the last wedding toast…
“Gwen is the perfect actress to play the multi-faceted Violet Highway,” says executive producer Jon Sen. “She’s a grandmother not to be messed with! Stuart and Callum are sure to find this out the hard way, when she arrives. They’ll no doubt be wanting her visit to be fleeting, but Violet definitely has other ideas…”
And what of the rest of the wedding guests? Well, with Callum’s recent list including Ben’s sister Louise and Uncle Grant, might we see some more family reunions when the pair tie the knot? All will be revealed later this spring…