Vinnie Monks
fictional character

Vinnie Monks is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by comedian Bobby Davro. He made his first appearance on 8 October 2007. It was announced on 19 July 2008 that Davro quit the show to do other projects. He made his final appearance on 1 December 2008.
Character creation and development
Background and casting
Vinnie Monks was introduced by the executive producer of EastEnders, Diederick Santer. The character, described as "a loveable rogue", was brought in as a love interest for the character Shirley Carter (Linda Henry) in October 2007.
The role was given to Bobby Davro, known to the British audience as a 1980s comic, impressionist, and a 1990s children's TV presenter. Davro has revealed that he auditioned for the role on the advice of actress Barbara Windsor, who plays landlady Peggy Mitchell: "It's through her really that I got this chance." Bobby Davro was said to be "chuffed" when he got the part. He has commented: "EastEnders is a high-profile show, but I'm already used to the attention which being on telly brings […] I love the part and I'm learning. I'm still trying not to look straight at the camera, that's the entertainer in me!
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This entry incorporates text from “Vinnie Monks” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.