DANNY DYER


LUV - I would not ordinarily entertain watching TV shows called things like “Humberside’s Knifiest Psychopaths”, or “London’s Tastiest Firms”, but my odd fascination with Danny Dyer means I basically have to. Here he comes with his cockney waddle, collar upturned on his garm, muttering about how some naughty murderer once frew a nonce’s nut frew a windah.

“And nah,” he intones grimly, leaning into the camera, “oi’m abaht ta spend a week seein’ hah the East Soid Terrace Crew go abaht cantin’ veir enemies.”

What follows is invariably Daniel getting up close and personal with pwoper, claret-spilling geezahs. At first you think he’s going to try and identify with them, and trade stories based on his favourite headbutts. But to his credit he usually ends up, however sycophantically he sucks up to them, getting punched in the head or failing miserably to keep up with their punishing training regimes. This pleases people who hate him and fantasise about seeing him punched in the head, but also those who see him as an everyman sort just trying to earn a pahnd note.

Lots of people profess to loathe Danny Dyer, but that that surely involves taking his wide-boy persona seriously. And how can you? In films he essentially plays the same part every time, which tends to require him to:

  • waddle
  • drink lager
  • muller people and/or get mullered himself
  • say “swoight as” several times
  • shout “YOU CANT”.

And he is great at swearing. You get the impression that as he emerged from his mum’s vaginal canal, he started wailing briefly before swiftly learning how to emit curses from his placenta-smeared lips: “WAHHH, MAM, YOU PUSHED ME AHT YER CANT, YOU CANT! WAHHH!”

At show and tell at school, I fancy the six year-old Danny would entertain his classmates with tales of how, over the weekend, his Han Solo figure boshed his Lando Calrissian figure for being a lying cant. And as he lies on his deathbed, years hence, I imagine Danny will look back on his successful Eastenders career (oh, it’s going to happen, just you wait) and whisper, “That fackin’ Janus was a roight sort. Anus more like, know wot oi mean, san?” Then he’ll wink his final wink, before becoming brahn bread.

Sure, he’s the kind of guy who would sit with legs wide open on the tube. And yes, he probably talks with his mouth full and belches after every mouthful. And we know he accepts money to put his name to ever-so-slightly offensive magazine columns before claiming no knowledge of their content. But he’s also the type of bloke who would secretly cry at Babe, and help your Gran across the road. So give the cant a break, you CANT.
- Stuart Waterman 


HAT - Nah, I don’t buy it.


I mean, on the small screen he might be all wide trousers and hair gel and “WODGE IT YOU MUPPETS OI’M DANNOY DOYAH” but I bet you anything that, as soon as the cameras stop rolling, young Daniel collapses in a flop-sweat, exclaiming “AY my god, I’m like, TAYTALLY bushed”, flaps at his face with a perfumed paper fan and calls for his smoking jacket, monocle and chai tea latte STAT.


I bet that, in his personal life, Danny Dyer listens to Dido, drinks Sleepy Tea of an evening, and uses words like “felicitous” and “yon”. My reasons for this are three:


1. HE IS NOT A HARD MAN
He’s just not. For a start, he’s only about three foot tall and quite plainly buys his clothes from Baby Gap. Also, he can’t grow a proper beard, and he’s cross eyed, which means he probably lacks the depth perception needed to make a fist, never mind land a punch. He was in Cadfael, for god’s sake. Fucking Cadfael, the show about twelfth century Benedictine monks. Can you see him squaring up in a hessian sack and Jesus boots, threatening to slash Derek Jacobi right up his Britney Spears*? No, me neither.


Also, on Danny Dyer’s Deadliest Dannies, or whatever it’s called, he interviews reformed crims about their dark deeds. Reformed crims, this is. Hard men gone soft and remorseful – and yet, every time one of them so much as looks at Danny Dyer he visibly gibbers with fear. “TEW ME BAHT WOT YOU DUN DEN”, he’ll ask one. “WEWW DANNOY,” the hard man will sigh, but Danny will already be up and out of his seat, backing away, crying “NAH MATE ISS OAROIGHT MATE I DUN WANNA START NUFFIN LESSLEAVE IT YEAH?”


And, if you needed further proof, Danny Dyer’s self-confessed arch nemesis is none other than the terrifying FILM CRITIC MARK KERMODE.


2. ALL TV COCKNEYS ARE REAL LIFE POSHOS
This is irrefutable. June Brown, TV’s Dot Cotton, is always wittering on about her theatre career. Pam St Clements - Pat off Eastenders – went to boarding school and is called Pam St Clements. If, in a forthcoming episode of Who Do You Think You Are, Danny Dyer doesn’t turn out to be landed gentry I’m a junkie’s carbuncle**.


3. NO ONE CAN BE *THAT* MUCH OF A JOHN McRIRICK***
Anyone who, in a national lads’ mag, advises a heartbroken reader to “cut your ex’s face, and then no one will want her” is trying too hard, because no one can honestly be that much of a douchebag.


Yeah, I’m on to you, Danny Dyer. You and your cravat.


*Ears
**Monkey’s unkle
***Dick
- Robyn Wilder


Illustration by Philip Martin, who sells rather good t-shirts on his online retail portal.