Could Ian and Jane owning and running the Pub ever work? Ians a business man, he loves a business or two does Ian, so it makes sense that he would like to get his grubby mitts on it.

It's surprising that he's never had a go in the Vic really. Would it work? It would seem strange at first as Ian in particular would look out of place behind a bar doing a big boys job.

Jane on the other hand would make a cracking landlady.

He's tried to buy it at least once. I forget what happened though.

Good grief. They'd be worse than the Phil and Sharon combo. Jane's miserable face would sour the beer.😞

Ian has actually had two attempts at the Vic: firstly in 2005 when Christie illegally signed it to him (the pub was swiftly returned to Sharon) and again in 2009 when The Mitchell's couldn't pay back their loan to Ian and he took the pub as compensation IIRC

She wouldn't.... Plus she's in a wheelchair

I also have a vague memory of him trying to buy it as a gift to Mel?

Or was that Steve Owen?

Ian's gone after the Vic a few times but never quite managed to get it. I think there's always been a feeling amongst the TPTB that the pub isn't Beale/Fowler territory.

The Beales are still on shaky ground for a lot of people after the Bobby mess. I don't mind them where they are living on top of each other (since the living space has reduced in size back to the Pauline era to accommodate Jane's bedroom) with Lucy the elephant in the room. I'm not sure I want to see them embark on a full fresh start, at least not this early on.

Ian has never been the most personable of characters anyway. I couldn't see him putting the hours in front of house.

I'm sure it was Steve because he could the afford the full price so Sharon bought the rest (prompting her 2001 return), I'm pretty sure that's what happened at any rate

No I agree, even since episode 1 it was clear the Beales belonged on the market and the Watts in the pub, I think to highlight the differences between the families (is the Beales being your stereotypical London family and the watts being the main source of drama) and this has continued even 31 years later. I do think Martin and Stacey would be interesting in the Vic tho

She'd be buggered if someone asked her for a short from the optics

Ian also attempted to buy the Vic as a wedding present to Mel. He has tried to buy it at least three times, and actually got pretty close in 2005. But I think it's pretty clear that Ian is destined never to be landlord.

It would close within a week if that nasty repulsive witch McBeale got her blood-soaked hands on it.

It would cost them to much to make it wheelchair friendly and Ian would never pay for that

Plus neither of them have the right type of personality

Completely agree, although The Vic does have a very high murder rate for it's occupants. I can just see the Vic bust crushing her skull right now.

LOL it'd be an entertaining disaster.

Why can't somebody in a wheelchair run a pub? She doesn't have to serve behind the bar.

But no, I don't like the idea of the Beales in the Vic. Nothing wrong with the Carters.

Really cabt see Ian in the Vic

Yes Ian agreed to lend the Mitchells money when they were desperate on the condition that if they failed to repay him they would surrender the pub. However Janine got Ian drunk and slept with him and Archie blackmailed him into signing over the Mitchells debt to him or he would tell Jane about Ian's "affair". So when the Mitchells failed to repay the loan it was Archie who took control of the pub and not Ian.

No Ian is far too much of a wimp to be a pub landlord and he is not exactly Mr Popular with the squares other residents either.

No, they wouldn't suit it. Also is it just me or has Ian never even been upstairs in the vic? he probably has but I can't picture it

It would probably be quite hard to run a pub from their respective prison cells, so no.

Lock her up. In a non-wheelchair accessible cell, just in case she decides to make a roll for it.

My advice to the prison governer would be to slip the guards a score each, ensure that the nastiest gang in prison find out what McBeale does to kids, and hope that she is left unattended in the exercise yard one day, with no cameras or witnesses. If she has an accidental fall, so be it.

I feel like it's in EE history that two characters who always wanted the Viv, but never could achieve it, were Ian and Janine. Whenever they got close, it was always taken from them. It suits their characters well too.