Ryder Hawkins EastEnders storyline

Amelia Rowe

@amelia_ontherun

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Right, EastEnders fans, gather round \u2013 Ryder Hawkins is finally coming out on screen and his dad Ned is doing his usual terrible impression of a supportive parent, which the papers reckon is one of the Square's darker turns this autumn. I watch this show the way I watch the District line timetable: with a healthy suspicion that something's about to go wrong, but I can't look away. So here's my notebook of the coming-out storylines, soapy LGBTQ+ landmarks and Walford history that got me thinking about Ryder's arc \u2013 some decades old, some practically still wet paint. Think of it as the connecting service between EastEnders' past and present.

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Ryder Hawkins EastEnders storyline — 3 items
Name	Storyline	My take
1Christian Clarke arrives on the Square	Christian Clarke was introduced in 2007 as one of the show's main gay characters, later central to the Syed and Christian saga.	A proper slow-burn, like waiting for a replacement bus that never comes but somehow it's worth it.
2Syed and Christian's wedding	Syed Masood and Christian Clarke's relationship, complicated by Syed's arranged marriage, became one of the soap's most talked-about arcs.	Absolute heartbreak dressed as a drama. I still think about this one on the overground some evenings.
3Colin Russell's story	Colin Russell was one of British soap's first openly gay characters, appearing from the mid-1980s and facing the era's homophobia head-on.	Properly pioneering telly. Imagine doing that storyline before half the country had a landline, let alone acceptance.