EastEnders needs to bring back Ross Kemp as Grant Mitchell in 2023
Kemp has resumed his acting career – could Grant's return to the Square be next?
The past 15 years have seen one of EastEnders' most iconic characters, Grant Mitchell, pop over from Portugal for a string of sporadic guest stints – some more satisfying than others – but with Ross Kemp earning acclaim in his role as documentary filmmaker (and, more recently, TV quiz host), the odds of a more substantial arc for Grant have felt increasingly long.
That all changed in January when Kemp announced his return to acting – his first such outing since his last appearance on Albert Square seven years previous. Later this year, he'll play Tony Warden, a shady police detective, in Channel 5's new four-part thriller Blindspot.
Clearly, after some time away, Kemp was missing his first calling – but does this mean a reprisal of his most famous character is set to follow?
"I don't think you can ever say never," he said in an appearance on The One Show aired just weeks prior to the Blindspot announcement. "I loved the part - I did it for 10 years. I must have liked it because I stayed there for 10 years.
"It was great fun, I loved the cast - it was a great job. I'm doing lots of different things right now, but never say never."
If Kemp is willing, EastEnders certainly appears primed to bring him back. Chris Clenshaw, executive producer on the soap since 2022, has made the revival of long-lost characters something of a stock-in-trade – of course, Dot Branning's friends Colin Russell (Lord Michael Cashman), Mary 'The Punk' Smith (Linda Davidson), Lofty Holloway (Tom Watt), and Disa O'Brien (Jan Graveson) all reappeared in December last year to bid farewell to a Walford legend, but Clenshaw's tenure has also seen Keanu Taylor (Danny Walters) return to stir up more trouble and, notably, has reestablished Grant's sister Sam Mitchell (Kim Medcalf) as a major player on the Square.
Grant himself was referenced as recently as last July, with a desperate Sharon Watts (Letitia Dean) leaving her ex-husband a distressed voicemail. The ongoing vendetta of obsessed copper DCI Keeble (Alison Newman) had seen Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden) briefly end up behind bars, and when Sharon began to fear for Phil's life in prison, it was Grant she turned to.
That incident saw Sharon once again declare her love for Phil, but six months is a long time in Soapland and these days Phil has reunited with Kat Slater (Jessie Wallace), with Sharon lamenting the state of her love life until her former fling Keanu came back on the scene, seeking a reunion with both her and their son Albie (conceived during Keanu and Sharon's affair, back when she was still with Phil).
With Phil otherwise occupied, surely the reintroduction of Grant at this juncture would serve as the perfect spanner in the works, sparking more conflict and providing viewers with another compelling love triangle?
Though he had his fair share of romances throughout his years on the show – including with Ian Beale's ex-wife Jane Beale (Laurie Brett) – Sharon was arguably Grant's great love. He even attempted to persuade her to return with him to Portugal when he last visited home turf, though at the time she and Phil were inseparable.
Even before the news came that Ross Kemp was resuming his acting career, there was a real feeling that Grant Mitchell had unfinished business in Albert Square – and certainly that his most recent appearance left much of that potential unrealised.
The latter part of that stint was chiefly concerned with Grant's discovery that he had fathered a son with Michelle Fowler (originally played by Susan Tully, later by Jenna Russell) and while it was admirable for EastEnders to finally address one of its greatest dangling plot threads – a time bomb that had been ticking for some 20 years – the brief nature of Grant's return meant that his relationship with his long-lost son, the offspring of two of the soap's greatest ever characters, was never explored in any great detail.
Though he was able to repair his somewhat fractious relationship with daughter Courtney (Alice Nokes), Grant returned to Portugal with few real prospects – having previously racked up debts and lost his home and business – and with his relationship with Phil in something of a sorry state, the pair having feuded following the death of their mother Peggy (Barbara Windsor) over Phil's failure to repay money he owed his brother.
There's the possibility of a renewed romance with Sharon, a new nemesis in the form of Keanu (who originally joined EastEnders in 2017, shortly after Grant's departure), a revisiting of his love/hate dynamic with Phil, perhaps even the opportunity to dig deeper into his dynamic with Mark Fowler Jr (perhaps recast, with original actor Ned Porteous having since gone on to greater soap success as Joe Tate in Emmerdale from 2017-18 and more recently appearing in Bridgerton and the Disney Plus series Extraordinary).
There's plenty of seeds sown for what could be a spectacular comeback for Grant, and with Ross Kemp seemingly at least open to the possibility, Chris Clenshaw – if his track record is anything to go by – might just be the man to make it happen.
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