Trevor Andrew Short is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Phil McDermott from 1 June 1989 to 1 March 1990.

Trevor arrives in June 1989 in search of his friend, the builder Paul Priestly (Mark Thrippleton), who had roomed with him briefly at a youth hostel.

Trevor manages to hit it off with the pensioner Mo Butcher (Edna Doré) after he kindly mends a broken washing machine at the launderette.

Despite all these blunders, Paul still persists in helping his friend out, and allows him to assist him with the renovation of Julie Cooper's (Louise Plowright) salon and the decorating of Karim's (Aftab Sachak) new property.

True to form, Trevor even manages to make a mess of these jobs when he strikes a water main — flooding the market — and causing the Karim's ceiling to collapse.

He finds work tending a stall on the market, but has most of the contents stolen by thieves and is the victim of many practical jokes from hooligans such as Junior Roberts (Aaron Carrington) and his girlfriend Melody (Lyanne Compton).

Trevor mopes around feeling sorry for himself for a while but manages to take his mind off things by developing a new crush, this time on Shireen Karim (Nisha Kapur).

In February 1990, Paul returns to Walford briefly to give Frank Butcher information on his missing daughter, Diane, who has run away from home.

Original production designer, Keith Harris, left the show, and co-creators, Tony Holland and Julia Smith, both decided that the time had come to move on too; their final contribution coincided with the exit of one of EastEnders most successful characters, Den Watts (Leslie Grantham).

[1] The departure of two of the soap's most popular characters, Den and Angie Watts (Anita Dobson), had left a massive void in the programme which needed to be filled.

[1] In addition, several other long running characters left the show that year, including two original cast members, Sue and Ali Osman (Sandy Ratcliff and Nejdet Salih) and their family; Donna Ludlow (Matilda Ziegler); Carmel Jackson (Judith Jacob) and her family and one of the show's more controversial characters, Colin Russell (Michael Cashman).

[1] Such characters included Trevor Short, the "nearest thing to a village idiot that Walford had seen in many years", and his friend, northern heartbreaker Paul Priestly (Mark Thrippleton);[1] Julie Cooper (Louise Plowright), the man-mad hairdresser; Marge Green — a batty older lady played by veteran comedy actress, Pat Coombs; wheeler-dealer Vince Johnson (Hepburn Graham) and Laurie Bates (Gary Powell, who became Pete Beale's (Peter Dean) sparring partner.

He was a well-intentioned but lonely misfit that rarely got anything right; a role that had been largely absent since the departure of Lofty Holloway in 1988 — although Trevor would prove to be a substantially less successful character in comparison.

Trevor's character in particular was regularly used for comic effect, with emphasis placed on his inferior intelligence and ability to turn any small task into a disaster.

[1] Although the programme still covered many issues in 1989, such as domestic violence, drugs, rape and racism, the new emphasis on a more balanced mix between "light and heavy storylines" gave the illusion that the show had lost a "certain edge".