Harry Reynolds
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| EastEnders character | |
|---|---|
| Harry Reynolds | |
| Portrayed by | Gareth Potter |
| Duration | 1986 |
| Marital status | Single |
| Occupation | Student |
Harry Reynolds was a fictional character in the popular BBC soap opera EastEnders. He was played by Gareth Potter.
[edit] History
Harry was a college friend of Kelvin Carpenter who first appeared along with Tessa Parker in June 1986. Both Harry and Tessa had radical Marxist beliefs and it wasn't long before they managed to recruit Kelvin to the same way of thinking.
Soon after his arrival, Harry, Kelvin and several other Walford youths decided to form a band. Harry was the manager, Ian Beale played drums, Sharon Watts and Kelvin provided vocals, Simon Wicks played the keyboard and Eddie Hunter was the lead guitarist. Harry and Kelvin decided that the band's music should demonstrate "decay in the capitalistic society" and have a strong political message. They initially called themselves Dog Market, but after they were banned from The Queen Vic for causing a power cut at their first gig, they decided to change their name to The Banned.
Simon and Harry began to disagree with the direction the band was taking. Harry had lost his argument to make the band a vehicle for communist propaganda and blamed Wicksy for the band taking a more practical attitude. They all decided to enter a competition for young musicians, and both Harry and Simon vowed to outdo each other by writing the best song to perform. The rest of the band all preferred Simon's song, which infuriated Harry and he started bad-mouthing him to the rest of the band, saying he was superflous and a closet BBC Radio 2 listener. Simon then declared that the band had to choose between him and Harry, but as Harry owned all the instruments and equipment, they sided with him and Simon quit. The band then deided to use Harry's song "Something Outa Nothing". The day of the competition came and for some reason Harry then decided to sabotage their performance by switching the cartridge in the synthesizer, wrecking any hopes the group had of getting anywhere! The rest of the band were furious, particularly when Harry confessed that he did it to show them up. Harry was shunned after this and was not seen in Walford again. His last appearance was in October 1986.
[edit] Trivia
- Nick Berry, who played Simon, released the song penned for this plotline ("Every Loser Wins") as a single, scoring a number 1 hit that same year. Letitia Dean and Paul Medford who played Sharon and Kelvin also released their song, "Something Outa Nothing". The song reached number 12 in the UK singles chart in November 1986.
- Although this storyline spawned two hit singles in the real world, the actual story was not a great success with viewers. EastEnders creators Julia Smith and Tony Holland both felt it lacked credibility and branded it an experiment that failed.
