EastEnders’ Natalie Cassidy opens up about “very daunting” new BBC role

Former EastEnders star Natalie Cassidy has opened up about her new BBC documentary, Caring Together. The eight-part series, which begins on Monday (25 May), sees the actor returning to education to train as a carer.

“Natalie will be enrolling at one of the UK’s top Health & Social Care colleges where she’ll study, train and work alongside health and social care students, care professionals, volunteers and home carers,” reads the logline (via BBC).

There, they will be “facing the realities, heartbreak and joy of caring. Together they’ll be putting the spotlight on a dilemma we’ll all face at some point in our lives – who will care for our parents, our partners, our children… and who will care for us?”

Cassidy, who is known for playing Sonia Fowler on the BBC soap, appeared on The One Show on Thursday (21 May) to discuss the upcoming documentary. She explained that it was a “real important passion project” for her and that she had “the best time” filming it.

“It was very daunting because I thought, ‘I’m going into a classroom here with a load of students. I’m 42. What are they going to make of me?'” she recalled. “But they took me under their wing, I became part of the team – it was wonderful getting to learn again.”

“I haven’t been at school since I was 16, EastEnders all the way, so it was lovely to get back into a bit of education as well,” she continued. “It became a bit of a running joke, we’d finish a day and we’d say ‘wasn’t that the most special day?'”

“Everybody within that care system – volunteers, charity workers, nurses – has so much empathy. Everybody is caring, so you just have the best time,” continued the actor, who said that the programme was a reminder that there are “good people around”.

The series, which is billed as “groundbreaking”, is said to have fulfilled a “longstanding ambition” of Cassidy’s, who has wanted to train as a carer even when she was a main fixture of Albert Square.

The first four episodes of the documentary will air from Monday to Thursday next week, while the remaining four instalments will air on the same days of the week commencing Monday 1 June.