patrick trueman, played by rudolph walker, makes his first appearance on 13 september 2001. the character was introduced by john yorke as a replacement parental figure to the trueman brothers, anthony (nick bailey) and paul (gary beadle), following the departure of audrey trueman (corinne skinner-carter), a character killed off in the serial in september 2001. patrick first appears at audrey's "rum-fuelled wake" as her estranged husband. walker was keen to play a comic element to the character, telling larry jaffee of "walford gazette", "before joining, i told the producer [comedy] is an area i would like to explore [with the character] because there was not enough of it [in the show]. [patrick] treats a lot of things with a certain amount of humour. his way of escaping a problem is to find something funny to do or say or sometimes to get himself out of a tight corner. that's really the sort of foundation. i try to put as much humour as possible into the character."