Natalie Evans (also Price) is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Lucy Speed. Natalie first appeared on 18 January 1994, depicted initially as an unhappy, insecure teenager; she was among various regular characters brought in to increase the cast following the BBC's decision to increase episode output to three per week. She featured most often with the characters Ricky Butcher (Sid Owen) and Bianca Jackson (Patsy Palmer); Natalie's affair with Ricky ending his relationship with Bianca was one of the prominent storylines aired in the Winter of 1995. Despite producers offering to extend Speed's contract, she opted to leave the serial in 1995, and Natalie departed on 23 February of that year.
Executive producer Matthew Robinson reintroduced the character in 1999 as a businesswoman and a love interest for Barry Evans (Shaun Williamson). Storylines included a rocky marriage to Barry, contemplating abortion, almost sleeping with her brother-in-law, rekindling her affair with Ricky, a relationship with Paul Trueman (Gary Beadle) and desperately trying to get Janine Butcher (Charlie Brooks) arrested for murdering Barry. Her departure was announced in early 2004, and Natalie left on 10 May 2004.
Creation and development
Casting 1994 was a 'historic' year for EastEnders, as in April that year, a third weekly episode was introduced. Due to the programme's increased frequency, a number of new characters were introduced to the regular cast in the latter part of 1993 and early 1994. Among them was Natalie Price, who made her first appearance in January 1994 as the best friend of Bianca (Patsy Palmer). The character was introduced under executive producer Leonard Lewis.
The actress Lucy Speed – seventeen at the time – was chosen to play the part. Speed claims that she was cast due to her "cranky" attitude during her audition. She comments, "I showed up there with an attitude, not giving 'a stuff' whether I got the damn part and they responded to that. They liked it, liked my feistiness, they thought it was the quality they were looking for...Natalie was a pretty gloomy kid, not a sunny show-biz kid which is all they'd been seeing until I walked through the door. So I got the part".
Personality
The character has been described by EastEnders author, Rupert Smith, as an "eternal victim" – a female character who endures much misfortune and misery, but lacks the "pluck" of her "feistier sisters". Early on in her narrative, Natalie was shown to be an insecure and lonely individual – a "gloomy kid" from a broken family with an uncaring, criticising and resentful mother, Andrea (Cindy O'Callaghan). The character was often seen to be "shunted aside by stronger personalities", such as her best friend Bianca – who was shown to bully and torment Natalie, telling her "that she was plain and wouldn't attract boys", although in later years Natalie stood up to Bianca's bullying.
Similarly, she was unsuccessful in relationships, falling for unsuitable men who ended up hurting her and settling in a "secure but uninspired" marriage to a mismatched, immature partner, Barry Evans. She was frequently shown to feel constrained and trapped by her marriage and motherhood, her initial reluctance to be a mother stemming from her own unhappy childhood. Though the character occasionally showed "a rare flash of spirit", the results were usually detrimental – an affair with her "first true love", Ricky Butcher (Sid Owen), ended the character's marriage and left her to face "a dreary future as a single mother". Lucy Speed has commented on her character's personality: "she's a thinker and quite vulnerable, but she's grown up a lot. She's also had storylines where she's dealt with family skeletons and she did find a man who was able to give her stability and the chance for her to grow up a bit. Ultimately though, I hope that I've shown that who she is now explains who she was then…she's gone from being a young girl with zero confidence in herself to a young woman with a certain measure of confidence, back to someone with zero confidence. Life doesn't go easy on her but she's got strength. She's a feisty little thing and she gets on with things".
Love triangle and initial departure Initially, Natalie's principal purpose in the serial was to be Bianca Jackson's "put-upon sidekick"; Bianca was already an established character, having been introduced two months prior to Natalie's first appearance. The most notable storyline featuring Natalie during her initial stint in EastEnders was her affair with Bianca's boyfriend, Ricky. On-screen, Natalie and Ricky found themselves sidelined and bullied by Bianca, forcing them together and leading to their eventual affair, which continued for several weeks on-screen, with Ricky seeing both Natalie and Bianca. The storyline reached its climax on 16 Feb 1995; 17.0 million viewers tuned in to witness Bianca discovering that her boyfriend was sleeping with her best friend. The aftermath of the storyline led to Natalie's departure from the serial. On-screen, Ricky discovered that Natalie orchestrated Bianca's discovery of their affair and finished with her, and in the midst of Bianca's wrath, Natalie fled from Walford in shame on 23 February 1995.
Off-screen, actress Lucy Speed had decided to leave the serial after playing Natalie for a year, as she was reportedly "freaked out" by the media attention she was receiving from being in such a high-profile show. In an interview with the Walford Gazette, Speed commented: "I was very frightened by it quite frankly and certainly unprepared for it. I didn't like at all the attention that came with being on such a high-profile show. It simply wasn't what I signed up for in the first place-all that craziness. I was naive, I admit. Of course it does come with the job of being on the show and you have to learn to deal with it and cope with it. The advantages always outweigh the drawbacks, anyway, but it didn't seem like that to me at the time. I was very young and extremely shy, so it all became a huge difficulty for me…But I also have to make it clear that from the beginning when I joined, I always intended to stay in it for just a year anyway. I honoured my initial one-year contract and then moved on…they did express their interest in signing me for another year, but I politely but firmly declined. They were a bit shocked. I tried to explain in the best way I could my reasons for leaving at the end of my contract and they ultimately understood, and so I left on good terms with them…I had some growing up to do and instinctively knew that growing up more or less in front of the British public for one year was enough!"
Reintroduction and marriage to Barry Evans After a four-year absence, Lucy Speed decided that she wanted to return to the series. She mentioned this to her former castmate Ross Kemp, who played Grant Mitchell in the serial and he initiated contact between Speed and then executive-producer, Matthew Robinson. Robinson had been thinking of introducing a new love-interest for the character Barry Evans (Shaun Williamson), and Robinson had already considered the possibility that the love interest could be Natalie. Speed has commented, "It was good timing. He thought I and the character fit the bill". Natalie made her reappearance on-screen on 8 March 1999 and a relationship between the two characters was developed. A friendship was also re-established between the characters Natalie and Bianca in a special four-hander episode – although "the closeness was never quite the same".
Natalie's relationship with Barry Evans- frequently described as a "bumbling buffoon" – was central to the character upon her return to the serial. Speed has explained her character's initial attraction to Barry: "I think it has a lot to do with her childhood. Natalie really adored her dad but he couldn't put up with that horrible wife of his, Andrea… and so he walked out on the family. Andrea is a total nightmare control freak, and it says a lot about who Natalie is, why she had no confidence in herself. Her mother probably emotionally abused her. So Barry represented safety and a secure family environment…She feels safe with him and she felt she made the right choice at the time, although of course she was apprehensive about it".
Millennium wedding The biggest storyline involving Barry and Natalie in 1999 was their joint double wedding with the characters Ian Beale and Melanie Healy (Adam Woodyatt and Tamzin Outhwaite), the lead up to which included a hen/stag night celebration episode, which was filmed on-location in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The episode evoked criticism by the Broadcasting Standards Commission for its inclusion of "almost relentless drunken and promiscuous behaviour, sexual innuendo and drug-taking, before the watershed", which included Natalie having to acquire three love bites from strangers. The BBC defended the episode, claiming that its content would have "come as no surprise to viewers" and adding that the depiction of this behaviour conformed to an EastEnders tradition: that questionable conduct "only leads to further trouble…One character's quest for drugs led to embarrassment and nausea and a drinking binge led to the calling off of [Barry and Natalie's] wedding while the prospects for another became bleaker."
Natalie and Barry's screen wedding was featured as part of the Millennium Eve episodes, which drew in 20.89 million viewers, the biggest soap audience since the character Tiffany Mitchell (Martine McCutcheon) was killed off in EastEnders precisely one year earlier (New Year's Eve 1998). An EastEnders spokeswoman commented: "This is a remarkable endorsement of the power of EastEnders that over 20 million viewers chose to see the Millennium celebrations in Albert Square." The episodes were also broadcast on screens in London's Trafalgar Square, a typical "haunt for New Year's Eve revellers".
Abortion In 2001, a pregnancy was written into the character's narrative. Natalie was shown to be distressed by the prospect of being a mother and planned to have an abortion. Speed commented, "Natalie desperately wants a baby but the thought of becoming a mother makes her unhappy. Her family background is so awful she doesn't want to make the same mistake her mother made, but feels the odds are stacked against her and Barry." Viewers saw a "devastated Barry" react badly to the news, in a special extended four-hander episode (written by Christopher Reason and directed by Clive Arnold); the episode had a maternal theme, with the action flitting between Barry and Natalie's saga and scenes between Steve Owen (Martin Kemp) and his dying mother, which included revelations of child abuse and incest. An EastEnders spokesman said: "We are very proud of the programme. The storylines involving Steve and his mother and Barry and Natalie are the stuff of intense drama. All four actors give incredible performances."