Letitia Dean - Lean Routine

So Christmas is over and it’s back to the humdrum routine that is normal life.

And you don’t get more humdrum than Letitia Dean’s workout featuring C-List Celeb’s favourite trainer, Dee Thresher. Dee is something of an expert at whipping Eastenders actresses into shape having previously worked her magic on Natalie Cassidy and Charlie Brooks.

As you know if you regularly consult your Workout-Releasing Eastenders Actors Knowledge Sheet. Which I'm sure you do.

And this is just more of the same really. Same skippety-hop dance moves, same celeb weigh-in, same stupid pointless diet plan. It’s fine. It does what you expect it to. It just seems like Dee found a formula that works and is careful not to deviate one tiny inch from it.

Pictured: skippety-hop dance moves

The only exciting variation on the previous workouts is the unusual decision to stage the whole thing in a hall somewhere which is apparently already furnished for a wedding reception taking place later that day.

"We need to lay the tables now but don't worry, we'll work around you."

Letitia Dean doesn’t have much to say during the workout although she sounds chirpy and disarmingly posh when she does say something. Safe to say that Letitia Dean is rather posher than Sharon Watts. Although, we’re not talking June Brown/Dot Cotton variation. They’re at opposite ends of the poshness scale, those two accents.

Posher than the Queen in real life.

Eastenders’ Sharon has been on the show since the very beginning so obviously the character has been through more than her fair share of drama, heartache and misery. Because Albert Square is positively drenched in gloom and suffering. It oozes out the cracks in the pavements. They have some terrible luck those residents - maybe the square was built on the site of an unconsecrated Pearly King graveyard. There’s definitely something up.

One of her most famous storylines was when her husband, Grant, found out she’d shagged his brother, Phil. Because you can’t just stop at one Mitchell brother, you know? They’re like Pringles. The affair was referred to as “Sharongate”, obviously. Odd to think that if Watergate happened now, we’d call it Watergategate.

Sharongate wasn’t the best Sharon-based storyline, though. You have to go way, way back for that. In 1986, the show’s producers decided what Eastenders really needed was a long drawn-out storyline featuring a battle of the bands competition and every single teenager in the cast creating a pop act in order to strive for music stardom.

You just don't get teens like this any more. I'm not sure you ever did.

It was a stupid decision, obviously. It’s a wonder that Eastenders ever managed to have itself taken seriously when entire chunks of episodes were given over to Letitia Dean and Paul Medford (Kelvin) singing the whole of their teen-tastic pop tune “Something outa Nothing”

You’d have thought they’d be a shoe-in with that number under their belts but artistic differences meant that Simon Wickes left the band (cunningly named “The Banned” – do you see what they did there?) and sang his own number “Every Loser Wins” which became an actual real-life hit for actor Nick Berry. He didn’t have all the glory, though. Berry may have reached the showy heights of Number 1 but Letitia Dean managed to reach a very creditable No.12 with “Something outa Nothing.”


Another example of a big chunk of a prime-time BBC show being used to showcase a pop release. Simon Cowell is clearly missing a trick, here.

So Letitia Dean’s not just an actress and former Strictly Come Dancing contestant, you know. She’s also a One Hit Wonder.

She has very square knees.

I suppose I should return to talking about the workout DVD in question but I’m really not sure I can be bothered. Maybe it’s a post-Christmas thing. Life has been too damn exciting lately. The decorations are still up. There are Quality Streets in little festive bowls. I am now the owner of a FREAKING LED JELLYFISH MOOD LAMP.


Behold the amazingness!

I have been spoiled by awesomeness. Perhaps next week, when the dull drudgery of real life has fully kicked back in, I will appreciate the craftsmanship of a DVD in which two women jump around a bit. But today is not that day. Sorry, Letitia. Blame those Cockney Ghosts.

Lucy Benjamin - Dancercise

I have spent most of today learning about practical version control and building an SVN Repository. Because I’m doing a computing degree and that’s the kind of fun and exciting weekends I have. I like to kick back and create a repository, commit a few changes, create a tag here, a branch there, generate the occasional repository log message file until I start to slip into a tedium-induced coma and have to keep myself awake by plashing my skull repeatedly against the keyboard.

And then the face in my computer tells me to stop

And you know what the dullest part of my day was? The hour and a half I spent doing Lucy Benjamin’s Dancercise workout.

You may think that staring at a command screen until your eyeballs throb is tedious but seriously, try Lucy and trainer Fitz’s method of keeping fit by leaping to the side, stepping to the front and *clap!* repeated 5000 times. The entire DVD was like an endlessly repeating 3 second gif.

This is honestly all there is to it.

It doesn’t really help that there aren’t any proper separate sections. There are no scene or costume changes between the intriguingly named Workout 1 and Workout 2. There isn’t even a jingle or a fancy title graphic to break up the monotony. I originally quite liked Lucy’s pink joggers and wrap-around cardi. It seems like everyone’s been doing these DVDs in skimpy pants recently and I appreciated Lucy taking a more comfy approach. My enthusiasm waned after a while although I do respect her devotion to leisurewear.

The music is baffling and doesn’t add to the illusion that this is supposed to be a fun dance session. Most of it sounds like a TV theme tune. I kept feeling like they were actual proper programmes that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. One was a bit like Black Beauty and another was a bit like Hill Street Blues though neither is anywhere near as good as the originals. I imagine someone was commissioned at short notice to provide the theme music for a daytime TV show about farming or antiques or dogging or something and it got cancelled at the last minute. In which case it’s nice to know that they found some use for the music after all.

Lucy Benjamin is obviously most famous for playing the consistently miserable Lisa in Eastenders. She is part of the elite group of workout-releasing ex-Eastenders actors and features on CLCW's handy knowledge sheet.

Lucy’s early acting CV is even more impressive. Her very first TV role was on Doctor Who, for goodness sakes. Admittedly, it was only a couple of seconds long but Doctor Who! When the Doctor looked like Peter Davison!

80s style clothes of the future

You wouldn’t think you could top that but Lucy only went to star in Press Gang! Third person in the credits, no less, after Julia Sawalha and Dexter Fletcher.

I have resisted the urge to watch any Press Gang clips on YouTube because it’s ever so slightly possible that the show isn’t quite the epitome of unparalleled awesomeness that it is in my head. I was also concerned that I might fancy Spike as much as I did at the time and that fancying a teenager would make me feel grubby. Surprisingly, it turns out that Dexter Fletcher was in his mid-twenties when he played Spike. I can scarcely believe it. The man’s clearly an acting genius.

This was all I wanted in a man when I was 14. It still might be.

Lucy is currently performing in Hairspray as Velma Von Tussle. We can only hope that this keeps her far too busy to make any more workout DVDs.

Best Bit
Lucy’s fitness instructor is an enthusiastic gentleman called Fitzroy Gaynes. When Fitz wants us to take notice of a new move he’s going to demonstrate he gives us the ‘Visuals’ sign so we can all pay attention. This involves framing his eyes with v-shaped fingers. It’s like being given dancing instructions by Vince Vega from Pulp Fiction.

No wait a minute, it’s nothing like that. Vince Vega dancing lessons would be awesome. Although there might be the risk of accidentally snorting some heroin during the cool-down.

Worst Bit
Aside from the crappy workouts and the crappy music, there is unsurprisingly a crappy DVD extra. Here, Lucy has her face moisturised and massaged by a beautician where they discuss what Beauty treatments plebs like us might be able to do at home. Honey face masks and putting tea bags on eyes are mentioned. There’s nothing like having beauty recommendations made by someone who clearly isn’t going to try what they’re suggesting.

"As long as we keep talking I can claim this on expenses"

Difficulty Level
Well it’s dancing which makes it inherently difficult for me but it’s shit dancing so that helps a lot.

Sometimes you have to dance like nobody's watching. 

This is not one of those times.

Would I do this workout again?
No. There is almost nothing to redeem this DVD at all. At the end of the workouts, Lucy suggests that we invite our friends round to do this workout with us. She demonstrates this by having a few of her friends join in the next bit. In a twist on the classic line, Lucy says  “if they can do this, anyone can.” which seems a wee bit insulting to her friends.

You are all much more shit than me

Don’t get too excited about the friends workout by the way: they repeat one of the earlier workouts rather than do a new one and the whole thing lasts about 30 measly seconds.

So, no offence, Lucy but I really don’t think I’ll be inviting any of my friends round to do your workout any time soon. I’d sooner invite them round to build back-up version control repositories with me

Natalie Cassidy – Then & Now Workout

Natalie Cassidy is the 5^th Eastenders actress workout to be featured on C-List Celebrity Workouts. She follows in the illustrious footsteps of Barbara Windsor, Jessie Wallace, Hannah Waterman and Charlie Brooks. It is a time honoured traditions for residents of Albert Square to don their lycra and share 60 minutes of themselves leaping about a bit with the world.

 If you consult your Cut-Out-and-Keep* Workout-Releasing Eastenders Actors Knowledge Sheet you can see that we haven’t even hit the halfway mark yet.

*Don’t really try to cut this out of your computer screen. That wouldn’t end well.

There’s some serious work ahead of us and six more workouts to get through before we can call “house!” on our Eastenders  bingo card. That’s assuming more Eastenders actors don’t release workout DVDs in the meantime. I suspect I would be powerless to stop them.

Not that I’d want to of, course.  I vote June Brown does one next. Or AdamWoodyatt.

You know, that dream could be closer than we realise.

Natalie teamed up with Charlie Brooks’ fitness instructor, Dee Thresher for this workout which was released in 2007, a couple of years after Charlie’s “Before and After” workout.

Dee is clearly not one to mess with a tried and tested formula. The workout is almost completely identical to the previous one. Including the footage of Natalie’s first workout and lots of close up foot action as she steps on the scales. All Dee’s signature moves are here: the box-step, the side-to-side skippy thing , lots of pelvis action. The whole thing’s too dance-y for my liking. She acts like it’s going to be all no-nonsense aerobic stuffs and then drops a choreographed dance sequence on you.

The sections are named things like SWEAT! and PUNCH! I was looking forward to the PUNCH section as I love a bit of pretend violence, me. Rather than getting stuck into imaginary fist fights, Dee has us skipping about like cheerleaders.

 

Street-fighting. Dee Thresher style.

Natalie and Dee seem to get on pretty well. Although, at one point Dee remarks to Natalie, “Let’s see if we can wipe that smile off your face.”

“You’ll have a job” responds Nat who then makes it her personal mission to SMILE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE for the rest of the workout. She looks completely deranged. It was lovely to watch.

Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeese!



Natalie delivers the classic celebrity workout line : “If I can do it – anyone can!” I wish I had been  keeping count of which celebrities have come out with those exact words. I reckon it’s all of them apart from Mark Wahlberg so far.

Best Bit

The exercise studio is  somewhere in London overlooking the Shell Mex building and the London Eye. It’s quite exciting. It’s the first C-List Celebrity Workout that looks like it might actually be taking place in the real world.

Tops of buildings! Some Flags!

Genuinely the most excited I've been about anything in a workout DVD ever.

It ought to be possible to identify the building that this is being filmed in based on the view from the window. I will try and work it out and then incorporate it into a CLCW walking tour. It’ll be great. I need a few more sites of historical C-List Celebrity Workout Importance first. Then I’ll organise a group of us to go round each one and do some appropriate fitness routines at each location.

Worst Bit

Sure you promise extras, Natalie Cassidy’s Then & Now Workout DVD, but what do you actually deliver? An “Eating Plan” which just consists of some words on the screen and barest outline of a healthy eating plan.

OK. Seems reasonable.

Wait, you haven’t said how often I can have these. I’m guessing about five or six times a day, right?

Luckily Natalie did a whole programme on how to eat for the BBC so don’t panic. Apparently living for a week on just maple syrup and water can make you feel a bit giddy.  You might want to make a note of that for future reference.

Weirdest Bit

“So Long, Sonja!” says the back of the DVD box. Who the hell is Sonja and why are we are saying goodbye to her?  I am presuming that they don’t mean Natalie’s Eastenders character, Sonia Fowler because surely whoever was writing the bit of bumph on the back of the box would have put in the cursory amount of research necessary to spell the name properly. Perhaps they’re talking about Queen Sonja of Norway. She might have been going off on a trip somewhere at the time.

Difficulty Level
This was far too complicated for me. I’m not here to memorise a dance routine, Dee. Just show me some squats and tell me to get on with it.

Would I do this workout again?

No. As I said it is almost identical to Charlie Brooks’  Before & After Workout. However, I do have the next Dee Thresher/Eastenders Actor mash-up to look forward to – Leticia Dean’s “Lean Routine”. I bet I can’t do that one either.

Charlie Brooks – Before And After

Charlie Brooks is the actress who plays Janine Butcher in Eastenders and shouldn’t be confused with Charlie Brooker, the TV Columnist and Black mirror writer.

Charlie Brooks workout regime contains a warm-up session, disco, combat and high intensity workout section and a Pilates cool down. Whereas Charlie Brooker’s would no doubt consist of gruelling allegory in a dystopian alternative reality. With knob jokes.

The Charlie Brooker Workout

 

Brooks is joined by Dee Thresher, the go-to Fitness coach for Eastenders actors. Dee has also appeared in a fitness-guru capacity on GMTV and Daybreak and is according to the internets, currently in a relationship with TV Doctor Nice, Dr Hilary Jones. At least, she has a link to his website from hers which I believe is how declares one’s intentions these days.

Da daaa! It's Dee.

Dee has also appeared in workout DVDs for Eastenders’ Natalie Cassidy and Letitia Dean although Brooks was the first so this is evidently where Dee got the taste for it. When I say first, I mean Charlie was the first to work with this particular trainer, not first to release a workout DVD , obviously. She was preceded by Patsy Palmer, Lucy Benjamin, Zoe Lucker and Barbara Windsor.

You know what would be handy? If someone were to produce a  handy visual guide to all the actors in Eastenders who have released workout DVDs including the date of release and the years in which they were part of the Eastenders cast.

Heh. I say ‘somebody’. I mean me, obviously. It’s not like I have anything more productive to do with my life. So here you go, world premier of CLCW’s official Workout-releasing Eastenders Actors Knowledge Sheet. Or WEAKS for short. You’re welcome, World.

Please click here for the larger version. Please. Don’t make me have put this together for nothing

This workout starts with a bit of background and Charlie’s early sessions which are shot documentary-style. We see her weigh herself for the first time and then cut to footage of her working out.

Original unsuccessful version of that John Lewis advert

“Doing the workout for the first time is the fun bit” intones the voiceover lady seriously. “But will it ever work?”

Well you see, Voiceover Lady, there’s not much point in the ramping up the tension because we already know that it’s going to work. New-look slim Charlie just told us so. Plus there’s a massive spoiler on the front of the DVD box itself. The bit where it says “This works! “


Warning: Contains Spoilers
Difficulty Level
Most of the routines were needlessly complicated. Dee seemed to under the impression we were learning a dance routine even when we just doing squats and lunges.  “And now lets put it all together and go from the top!” she’d shout enthusiastically. We’re not performing  a cabaret act here, Dee.

Charlie’s face was furrowed in concentration for most of the workouts and this is a girl who had supposedly done these routines dozens of times before.

Weirdest Bit
This isn’t specific to this workout but I was reading the warning bit that pops up at the beginning telling you not to do the workout if you’ve just eaten a heavy meal or are drunk or have taken lots of drugs and stuff. There is a line in it which says “Before consulting this or any other fitness regime, consult your doctor” Do people ever do that, do you think. Make an appointment with their GP so they can say “I’ve just bought this legs, bums and tums workout at Asda. What do you reckon, doc? Is it safe?” They shift millions of these things, surely. No wonder I can never get an appointment at the doctor’s surgery in under 3 weeks.

Worst Bit
The camera seems to be squarely trained on Charlie’s crotch for the first half of the workout. I had to pause the DVD a couple of times and both times, the TV screen just showed a close-up of her pelvis. Which was disconcerting.

For the second half the camera starts zooming in, zooming out and changing angles in a concentrated effort to give the viewer motion sickness. I think the cameraman was really bored.

Oh not again.

Would I do this workout again?
No point really. I know the ending now.

Hannah Waterman - Body Blitz

I don’t doubt for a moment that Hannah Waterman – daughter of Dennis and third wife of Ian Beale – really did lose all the weight she said she did. I have seen the video evidence after all. Why then does the picture of her on the front of the DVD box look like it was hastily cobbled together in Photoshop?

The face is at the wrong angle; the skin tone doesn’t match and just look at the unconvincing edging round her hair.

Was she hoping that people would purchase her DVD in the spirit of scientific curiosity to determine for themselves if the weight loss really did happen or if it was all part of some fiendish conspiracy?

Other celebrities who have benefitted from Waterman’s workout plan.

Hannah is keen to assure us that her workout is all based on ACTUAL SCIENCE backed up by Martin MacDonald from Loughborough University – the leading centre for Sport Science in Britain. The workout is based on interval training – 15 minutes of which is apparently equivalent to 1 hour of aerobics - a pretty impressive claim given that the workout seems to be full of the same leaping, jogging, bending and stretching that make up half the DVDs I’ve reviewed here.

Hannah is joined by not one but TWO fitness instructors, shouty Elia and quiet Adam. They both appear to be about 15 years old and all three have very sensibly decided to dress in white and fluorescent yellow clothing in case they need to cross any roads on the way home and want to be clearly visible to the traffic in accordance with the guidelines on the Government’s Road Safety website.
 

Always remember to stop, look, listen and Jesus Christ, that’s a terrifying website.

There’s plenty of uncomfortable flirting between Hannah and her boys, most of which revolves around her physically threatening them in some way. Adam gets to display the easier versions of the workouts while Elia and Hannah show off with the harder ones. By the look on Adam’s face, he isn’t particularly happy about this arrangement. ‘I could have done the hard ones,’ he’s clearly thinking. ‘I’m super-fit. If only Elia hadn’t won that game of stone, paper, scissors just before we started filming.’

Unlike other celebrities who have released workout after being caught by the tabloids daring to look like regular human beings at the beach, Hannah doesn’t keep her old fat self all greyed out and lurking in the background on the DVD cover. Old Hannah looks on admiringly  while - based on her body language – New Hannah is saying ‘Look on but do not come close, woman, lest your fat folds wobble in my general direction.’

 

They don't have this pair's chemistry, that's for sure.

Not only does the DVD display dozens of pictures of Hannah from the same paparazzi shoot, there's also footage of her doing the exercises at the beginning of the workout regime when she was at her ‘before’ weight of 10 stone something. I can’t decide if this is a positive move or more masochistic self-loathing. It’s hard to tell sometimes. To be fair, it’s enough of an effort to understand a celebrity’s workouts without trying to understand their minds as well.

Best Bit

Adam doesn’t say much but every so often Elia calls on him to explain something like why Interval training is better than other sorts of training. Adam concentrates and then recites his spiel like a kid reading his part in a school assembly. He looks utterly delighted with himself when he’s finished.

Difficulty

This is hot, sweaty and knackering work. It’s probably best to do these sections in twenty minute bursts as recommended rather than try to plough your way through it from beginning to end as I did.

Would I do this workout again ?

You know, it sometimes seems like I do nothing else with my life but watch people from soap operas leap around and bang on about their newfound love of fitness like a particularly tedious co-worker. Then I write it up while simultaneously stuffing bourbon biscuits into my mouth so it doesn’t do me much good in the end. I probably should do this one again; it was reasonably well put together and would probably be quite effective. I won’t though. I’ll watch Tamzin Outhwaite or Natalie Cassidy or some other Eastender in a week or two and it will just feellike I’m doing this one all over again.

Jessie Wallace – Look at Me Now

A  new year, a new set of resolutions and the return of C-List Celebrity Workout. It’s been a while, I grant you, and while this might not be entirelyworth the wait, it certainly is a C-List celebrity working out. And that, quite frankly, is all you can really expect.

Jessie Wallace is best known for her portrayal of Kat Moon (nee Slater) in Eastenders. I say best known, I’m not sure your average man in the street would be able to think of anything else she’s been in?

Love Actually? Those Activia yogurt adverts? No, wait a minute...

The DVD cover shows our celeb looking toned and happy beside the almost obligatory paparazzi shot where she’s wearing a swimsuit looking a bit saggy.

Jess has got no time at all for her old fat self. “Just a few months ago, I looked like this.” she tells us before doing the most enormous eyeroll. “Urggh! What a state! I was fat and out of shape.”

I can’t stress enough how much disgust she manages to convey in that “Urggh!”

She then goes on to tell us how she’d ‘ballooned’ to a size 14, explains that merely looking at a picture of herself from 2 months ago, causes her to be violently physically sick and then proposes that all fat people should be rounded up as a kindness to the rest of us and either forced to do Jessie’s Look at Me Now workout or shot. It’s possible some of this was cut for length.

The video appears to be set in an abandoned warehouse primarily used by criminal gangs to hide stolen Neon signs. There’s a massive neon “Me” behind Jessie throughout her workout. I presume the police arrived before the thieves could make off with the “Look”, “At” and “Now” ones.

There are also some massive lights and some tea-making stuff in the background by the looks of it so it’s possible the whole thing is supposed to be backstage on the Eastenders set. IMDB and Wikipedia both refuse to acknowledge this DVD’s existence, let alone give me comprehensive filming locations. I’ll either have to create www.CLCWDB.comor just make shit up.

Jess assures us that her diet and exercise plan are “Not a fad thing and not a passing craze.” I’m not sure it’s the celeb’s job to decide that. I don’t think this workout was any kind of craze back in 2009, even a fleeting one.

The workout consists of Warm-Up, Full Body Workout, Boxercise, ‘Legs, Bums, Arms and Abs’ and a Cool Down.

Jessie’s trainer is Paul Ellis, a buff, tattooed, mumbly sort of chap who doesn’t seem over the moon to be there but is prepared to put in a decent days work. In the Warm Up we get our first view of Jessie’s comedy marching which is marvellous sight to behold. At one point Jessie affects what I presume is supposed to be a breathy Marilyn Monroe voice and says “I call this one the Booty Booter?” Eh? Booter?

The Boxercise session was the most fun. It’s always pleasing to do a workout while imagining you’re taking part in a barroom brawl.  There’s one exercise where you simulate grabbing someone by the ears and then breaking their nose with your knee. Mostly it’s just pretending to punch people in the face. And step to the left. Punch! Step to the right. Knife to the kidneys! And rest.

There are a pretty varied bunch of exercise on this DVD and the instructions are straightforward enough. Jessie was quite excitable at times but not Barbara Windosr levels of crazy. She performed the advanced workout while Paul was the go-to guy for beginners. The camera sticks to Jessie pretty closely for a lot of the workouts making following Paul’s instructions a little tricky. Some of the beginner’s exercises could have involved reading the paper and eating ginger biscuits. I have no idea.

I did all the workouts in the workout section and the whole thing took about an hour. There was a “Killer Abs” workout in the Special Features section fronted single-handedly by Paul the trainer. Does Jessie even know this is on here? I skipped this as I am a woman of principal who refuses to do any exercise not endorsed by a celebrity. My abs will simply have to remain non-lethal.

Best Bit

There are proper songs being played during these workouts! With actual lyrics. Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance” and “Poker Face” are included. I’m not a massive Lady Gaga fan, to be honest, but I was hugely excited that it wasn’t just plinky-plonky lift music again. You know what should happen, though? A Lady Gaga workout video with Jessie Wallace doing the music. Who wouldn’t pay good money for 60 minutes of this sort of thing:

 

Worst Bit

In the ‘Interview; section, Jessie discusses how she was inspired to spread the love and joy of her fitness regime to the world. Basically she was approached by Acme Personal Trainers Inc who asked her if she would like to get a bit fit and then release a celebrity workout DVD. It’s that blatant. She isn’t even pretending that this something she happened to be doing anyway before she hit upon the happy notion of flogging a DVD in time for Christmas. I know this is the way the world works but I feel a bit let down. The magic’s been destroyed.  Another tiny piece of my faith in humanity has crumbled away like when my parents lied to me about taking Tiny Tears to the Doll Hospital.

Why did you stomp on my dreams Jessie?

Difficulty Level

You know I think I was OK with this one. I was following the easy version but I was generally lunging and punching and marching as instructed. I got out of breath in an encouraging rather than scary way and no-one tried to embroil me in a complicated dance routine.

I have to take issue with the lunges though. Paul was very insistent that I not let my knee overshoot my toes. I’m not sure he and Jessie were playing by the same rules.

Would I do this Workout again?

You know what? It’s a new year, a new start and I’m being all positive about things. So why don’t we assume I will.