It’s time to admit Danny Dyer is one of Britain’s greatest actors

I had a revelation while watching the TV event of the year, the adaptation of Dame Jilly Cooper’s bonkbuster Rivals. And, no, it had nothing to do with the much-discussed sex scenes. 

I couldn’t peel my eyes away from the screen because of… Danny Dyer. 

Danny, regretfully, is an actor who has slipped under my radar. 

From his hardman roles in films like Human Traffic and The Football Factory, to his geezer-about-town Mick Carter in EastEnders, I’m sorry to say I had dismissed him as just a sweary albeit entertaining ‘hardman’ who lacked range. 

How wrong I’ve been. 

In the Disney Plus series Rivals, Danny steals the show – and that’s no mean feat when his co-stars include David Tennant and Aidan Turner. He plays sensitive entrepreneur Freddie Jones, who is trapped in a loveless marriage to Valerie Jones (Lisa McGrillis) and pining after his neighbour and fellow lost soul, writer Lizzie Vereker (Katherine Parkinson). 

You can see the longing in his eyes every time Lizzie enters his peripheral vision without needing to say a word. It is a subtle and beautiful performance, one that’s beaten any leading man in a rom-com I’ve seen in years. Danny truly made my heart burst – and I’m not the only one. 

Despite the starry cast and back-to-back raunchy scenes, among them a completely naked game of tennis, it’s Freddie and Lizzie’s romantic frisson that has set social media alight. 

On X, the top tweet under the hashtag Rivals is not an off-colour remark about the nudity, as you might expect from the platform, but a picture of Freddie and Lizzie with the comment: ‘Ok, but these two were my FAVOURITE part of #Rivals.’ 

The second most popular tweet? Yet another image of Freddie and Lizzie with the caption: ‘Protect them at all costs #rivals.’ 

It speaks to my lack of imagination – and I’m sure of many others too – that I had a one-dimensional perception of Danny as an actor. And it’s partly because he has been overshadowed by his larger-than–life personality. 

Many people may only know him as dad to Love Island’s Dani Dyer; others will think of him fondly as an excellent guest on any TV show.

Who can forget when he appeared on Good Morning Britain in 2018 when he launched into an epic rant about then-prime minister David Cameron, branding him a ‘t**t’? Or, frankly, everything about his BBC docuseries Right Royal Family, made after discovering he is descended from King Edward III.

But Danny is a rare gem who can be both: an unfiltered national treasure who is also one of Britain’s most formidable actors. 

In recent years, Danny might have struggled to have been taken seriously as an actor after his long stint in EastEnders. There’s a perception, among some viewers and the acting establishment, that soaps are just frothy trash – a guilty pleasure you want to keep a secret- littered with hammy performances. 

It might be horribly unfair, but there is nonetheless a pervasive snobbery towards soap actors – almost like a class divide. They’re not treated with a fraction of the same reverence as TV stars and aren’t even mentioned in the same breath as movie stars. As Jo Joyner, who played Tanya Branning in EastEnders, put it in an interview, soap actors are viewed as a ‘completely different breed.’

As such, some soap actors struggle to find work other than pantomimes once they leave. It might be because of elite and narrow-minded casting directors not wanting to touch actors once they’ve been ‘tarnished’ with the soap brush or because once a star has played a character for years, it’s hard for audiences to picture them as anyone else.

Yet soaps, like Danny’s former home EastEnders, have always recognised talent before everyone else – look at Sarah Lancashire and Michelle Keegan, both Corrie alumni, or Anna Friel, who started out in Brookside, all of whom have become British acting royalty.

One legend who did not overlook Danny’s talent is Harold Pinter. He could have had his pick from any actor in the UK and further afield, but cast and directed Danny in his play Celebration in 2000. Evidently impressed, Pinter directed him again in a production of No Man’s Land not long after. 

In 2008, Danny was directed by Michael Attenborough in another Pinter play, The Homecoming, in London’s West End.

If this tells us anything, it’s that – given the chance and an open mind – soaps can launch the careers of everyone from serious dramatists to movie action heroes and accomplished stage actors. It’s not often that actors can jump so seamlessly between multiple mediums as they require different skill sets and we should praise them when they do.

I hope Rivals shows casting directors what Danny is capable of and they realise he’s more than just their go-to ‘geezer’. Aged 47, Danny has finally been given the chance to step into what he has always been – one of Britain’s greatest actors.

According to IMDb, he’s got another four on-screen projects outstanding so let’s pray we don’t have to wait long again to see him in a role he’s truly worthy of. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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