Despite having written huge quantities of fanfiction about Chris Bean, I find it hard to put his characteristics into words! Here's my best effort.

• Chris is a man who is always tense. He's nervous, he's frustrated, he's quick to anger, he's plagued by insecurities and anxieties. He's never relaxed in his life.
• Chris has been beaten down a little by repeated failures, but he isn't a cynic. He's genuinely passionate about theatre, and he still approaches every play with the hope that this one might be a success. I think there's a part of him that really appreciates beauty and is easily moved by kindness, but it's often hard for him to access that part of himself because he's so busy being stressed out.
• From what we hear of it, Chris seems to have a complicated and strained relationship with his mother, who 'abhors physical contact' and likes to watch Chris's favourite children's show with him on Mother's Day 'to remind her of a time when I was younger'.
• Chris likes to think of himself as dignified, but he doesn't have enough self-control to live up to it. There's a seething frustration beneath his surface with a tendency to explode, and he often gives in to the impulse to be contrary, confrontational, competitive or childish when annoyed, particularly when the source of his annoyance is Robert or the audience.
• Chris has a tendency to be defensive, to take things personally, to interpret the words and actions of others in bad faith. This is a point of difficulty in his relationship with Robert, who will often unthinkingly hurt or upset him with no personal intent behind it.
• Chris is intensely repressed. He's never had a desire in his life and you can't prove otherwise. (On account of Chris's aforementioned poor self-control, any desires he's repressing have the interesting potential to explode to the surface if provoked.)
• Like Robert's, Chris's speech tends towards the formal, slightly old-fashioned, slightly elaborate. Robert speaks in a way that sounds more practised and artificial, more like someone reading from a script, reflecting the way he carries acting into every aspect of his life; Chris's speech is perhaps a little more natural.

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