Charlie Slater is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Derek Martin.

In April 2010, the character was axed among five others by new executive producer Bryan Kirkwood as part of a plan to "breathe new life into the show".

Charlie, a taxicab driver, who is widowed from Viv Slater (April Martin), arrives in Walford with Viv's mother Big Mo Harris (Laila Morse) and Charlie's four daughters: Lynne (Elaine Lordan), Kat (Jessie Wallace), Little Mo (Kacey Ainsworth), and Zoe (Michelle Ryan), plus Lynne's boyfriend, Garry Hobbs (Ricky Groves).

Little Mo, now married to Billy Mitchell (Perry Fenwick), is raped by Graham Foster (Alex McSweeney).

Charlie is arrested and remanded in custody for grievous bodily harm, to which he pleads guilty, but the family has to pay Graham £10,000 compensation.

When Stacey stops taking medication for her bipolar disorder, Charlie insists that she has to start again as she almost lost her baby Lily.

Charlie asks Stacey why she has not told the truth and begs her to take her pills, trying to force one into her mouth.

They argue as he could lose his driving licence, and Charlie later apologises to Stacey for forcing her to take her pills.

Kat is rushed to hospital, leaving Tommy in Charlie's care, but he joins the New Year's Eve party instead.

Kat asks Charlie to return to Walford, but he refuses as he is in a relationship with a younger woman named Eileen, and they are getting married.

When an angry Kat demands the truth from Mo about her son, Charlie suffers a heart attack.

Shortly afterwards, Stacey runs away from Walford; however, she has a hallucination of Charlie (a symptom of her postpartum psychosis) in the form of a taxi driver, who convinces her to return home.

Martin described playing Charlie as "comfortable", like putting on an "old coat" and stated in 2002 that he would like to stay with EastEnders until he dies.

His temporary departure storyline saw Charlie run away with his new love interest, Brenda Boyle (Carmel Cryan), however BBC confirmed that he would return in a "few weeks time".

[16] In October 2010, a last minute scene was filmed involving Charlie and Patrick, focusing on George Osborne's Spending Review, in which the characters discuss the impact of the Chancellor's plans.

[17] Talking about the baby swap storyline involving Kat, Alfie, Ronnie Branning (Samantha Womack) and Jack Branning (Scott Maslen), Martin explained that he only read his own parts of the script, so thought that Charlie simply leaves his grandson alone, gets drunk and the baby dies.

"[16] In his autobiography, released in 2013, Martin revealed that the storyline originally planned for Charlie's exit was that he have a heart attack and die.

"[18] Martin revealed that he immediately called former executive producer, John Yorke, who had introduced the character to the show, and told him of his impending on-screen death.

Martin then revealed that he had received a call from current producers, who said Charlie was not to be killed off, and would simply go to live with eldest daughter, Lynne.

An EastEnders source told Digital Spy, "Although they've had their ups and downs, Kat deeply regrets pushing Charlie away.

Details surrounding Charlie's reason to return was being kept secret from the public, but was tipped to involve his daughter, Kat.

The pictures showed Kat and her husband, Alfie, celebrating their final day in charge of The Queen Victoria, with Mo joining them alongside Charlie.

Martin said of his on-screen death, "I spoke to Dominic, the executive producer, and he explained [the storyline] and said he'd give me a good send off.

[29] Charlie makes a cameo appearance in episode 6 of EastEnders: E20, where he is eating dinner in front of the television when there is a power cut, caused by Sol Levi (Tosin Cole) and Stevie Dickinson (Amanda Fairbank-Hynes).

[31] Grace Dent, also from The Guardian, said that one of her favourite soap opera moments of 2008 was when an escaped tarantula crawled up Charlie's leg.

[32] The episode in which he left following the aftermath of the baby swap storyline attracted 10 million viewers, according to Digital Spy.

"[36] Stuart Heritage from The Guardian criticised Kirkwood's axing of the characters, saying, "By rights, this should be a national day of mourning.

"[37] Phil Daniels, who played Kevin Wicks in the soap, criticised the axing of Charlie, along with that of the other five cast members, as they were "good characters".

[38] A reporter writing for the Inside Soap Yearbook 2017 (released in November 2016) described Charlie's death as "tragic".

[39] In 2020, Sara Wallis and Ian Hyland from The Daily Mirror placed Charlie 91st on their ranked list of the best EastEnders characters of all time, calling him "Salt-of-the-earth" and commenting "No wonder he died of a stroke" due to giving out "tea and sympathy to the wild Slater women".