EastEnders soap star June Brown quits after 35 years as Dot Cotton

EastEnders’ most iconic star June Brown has quit the BBC soap after 35 years playing laundrette worker Dot Cotton.

The 93-year-old says she left the BBC soap, celebrating its 35th anniversary this week, due to a lack of decent storylines. She described her soap exit as “almost as if [she’s] been bereaved”.

Dot is one of the soap’s best-known characters but has been absent from the soap since last month. The laundrette worker left a voicemail for Sonia Fowler (played by Natalie Cassidy) saying she’d gone to Ireland.

Speaking on the Distinct Nostalgia podcast to her former co-star Rani Singh, who played Sufia Karim in the 1980s, June said: “I don’t want a retainer for EastEnders, I’ve left. I’ve left for good.

Brown is perhaps EastEnders’ best-known star and played the larger-than-life Dot, known for her devout Christian faith and hypochondria. The veteran actress arrived on Albert Square shortly after the soap began in 1985.

Aside from a break between 1993 and 1997, has been a regular since.