Arthur Chubb



Arthur "Fatboy" Chubb is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders and its Internet spin-off EastEnders: E20, played by Ricky Norwood. He made first appearance in EastEnders on 5 January before appearing in the spin-off. The character was created by the EastEnders: E20 writing team during a BBC summer school in 2009. He is described as brash, confident, caring, a hustler and a womaniser, and critics have called him zany, an asset to the show, authentic, a cliché, and yet to serve a purpose, with Stuart Heritage from The Guardian calling for him to be axed. {| class="toc" id="toc"

Contents
[hide]*1 Creation
 * 2 Storylines
 * 3 Other appearances
 * 4 Reception
 * 5 See also
 * 6 References
 * 7 External links
 * }

[edit] Creation
Fatboy is one of four characters created for the spin-off who also appear in the main show, along with Zsa Zsa Carter (Emer Kenny), Leon Small (Sam Attwater) and Mercy Olubunmi (Bunmi Mojekwu). Fatboy, along with the other characters from E20, was created by the show's 13 writers during a summer school run by the BBC in August 2009.[1] Open auditions for the cast were held at Theatre Royal Stratford East.[1] Norwood's casting was announced on 25 November 2009, on which he said "I am so excited to be on the show. It's an honour to now be part of a show that has been on in my house for as long as I have been alive. I am born and bred in the East End — a stone's throw from the real Albert Square. It feels like a homecoming. I love being part of a cast that feels like family and can't wait to have a scene in The Vic."[2]

When the character was announced, he was described as a hustler who sees everything as an opportunity, and has created several personas since the age of seven to hide his real self.[3] Norwood expanded on this, saying "when he was in school and the register was being read out and it got to his name it would be 'Chubb!' and all the kids in school would start taking the mickey out of it. What he did was create something even more ridiculous to take away from that. He took the mickey out of himself and took the power away from those that were taking the mickey out of him. [...] For the same reason most kids put on a front, it's to protect himself from the world. He doesn't like his real name so he tried to create something that would get away from that and Fatboy was that creation. The street and the slang stuff is not something that is far away from him, it is still from the area that he lives in. Fatboy was someone he adopted to put a brave face on, to put a mask on himself, to protect Arthur from the world."[4] He comes from a wealthy background, and gets what he wants from his parents, with whom he has a good relationship, but hustles to cover for it.[5] Fatboy often wears clothing brand Ed Hardy.[6]

Norwood also said the character's introduction was "trying to bring the street to Albert Square" and that the street slang the character uses is what he grew up with himself.[4] He described the character in an interview with entertainment website Digital Spy as "[wanting] to be a gangsta at times, a caring person, a player, a womaniser, the businessman... There are so many things that he wants to be and that shifts depending on the situation," adding that he is quick to solve problems and always has a plan.[7] Additionally, a profile for the character on the official EastEnders website calls him brash, a wheeler-dealer, confident and a loveable soft-touch.[8]

[edit] Storylines
Fatboy first appears in EastEnders on 5 January 2010 in 89b George Street. Lucy Beale (Melissa Suffield) decides to hold a party there, and Whitney Dean (Shona McGarty) and Todd Taylor (Ashley Kumar) go into the bedroom but are interrupted by a noise. Fatboy emerges from under the bed where he has been reading an adult book. He is embarrassed but Todd and Whitney agree not to say anything, and Fatboy leaves the room. He gets pleasure from watching a fight between two girls, and asks other girls to play Twister with him but nobody will. In EastEnders: E20, Fatboy and his friend Mercy are in the community centre where Fatboy's attempts to encourage more young people to the church leave them both humiliated, so they leave. They eventually meet Leon and Zsa Zsa and start squatting in 89b George Street. Fatboy tells Zsa Zsa and Leon both his parents were killed in a drive-by shooting. He finds out Mercy is pregnant and in accuses Leon of being the father. During an argument, Mercy reveals that Fatboy's parents are alive, angering Zsa Zsa who throws Fatboy's laptop out of the window. On their last night in the flat, he arranges a party but leaves before the police arrive. Knowing they can no longer stay there, he invites Zsa Zsa, Mercy and Leon to stay at his house in Wanstead, but Mercy decides to go home to her grandmother.

After several weeks, Leon and Fatboy return to Walford to look for Zsa Zsa who has run away. They eventually settle in, making friends with several of the young locals. Zsa Zsa finds three dates for Fatboy, but none of then are genuine as Libby Fox (Belinda Owusu) thinks he wants advice on getting into university, Whitney Dean (Shona McGarty) thinks he wants dating advice, and Tamwar Masood (Himesh Patel) is expecting a date with a female. The day of Fatboy's driving test arrives but he has no car to practice in so borrows Darren Miller's (Charlie G. Hawkins) ice cream van. Although he fails the test, when he sees Darren is selling the van, he offers to buy it. He offers to help Whitney sell t-shirts from her market stall by saying he will sell them at college, but he ends up with £300 of stock. He uses his newly spraypainted van to sell the t-shirts, but ends up selling them all to Mo Harris (Laila Morse) who has been asked by Becca Swanson (Simone James) to buy them so she could sell them for a greater profit on her own clothing stall. Becca insists she did not know they came from Whitney's stall and then flirts with Fatboy. They eat chips together and Fatboy tells Becca about his t-shirt design ideas for Whitney's stall. Becca shows an interest and asks if she can have a sneak preview. He gives her a design so she has several t-shirts printed up, but fails to sell them and is humiliated when Whitney and Zsa Zsa point out that it is a mirror image of the word "chav". He finally passes his driving test and DJs for Ronnie Mitchell (Samantha Womack) at R&R nightclub. Fatboy, Leon, Zsa Zsa, Whitney, Lucy and Peter go to Hampshire and he attends a party with Peter while the others spend time in the woods. He is reunited with Mercy but a fight breaks out so they escape. As they drive back to Fatboy's uncle's home, Peter hits something with the van. The next day they discover that Leon has gone missing and they fear they hit him with the van when they find his mobile phone covered in blood.