Colin Russell is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Michael Cashman. The character appears between 5 August 1986 and 23 February 1989 and on 8 and 9 September 2016. Colin is originally portrayed as a middle-class yuppie with a kind heart. The character is Walford's first on-screen gay resident and he featured in the UK's first homosexual kiss on a soap opera, which caused controversy in the British press. Cashman is set to reprise the role of Colin for the funeral of Dot Cotton (June Brown), to be broadcast on 12 December 2022.