EastEnders showrunner reveals Stacey Fowler is "back with a bang" in September

Sen revealed in a Zoom virtual roundtable that Stacey (Lacey Turner) wouldn't arrive until a couple of weeks after the BBC One soap's return on 7th September, but we will know all about it when she does.

"The big [return] is Stacey – we have been waiting for her to come back," said Sen. "We have really missed her energy in the Slaters so the first two weeks we tease a mystery – where is she? Are all of these things going on in the Square are to do with her, then she’s back with a bang!"

Sen said there would be "some fantastic Stacey scenes – especially when she finds out about Martin and Ruby".

Turner, who plays Stacey, left EastEnders last June to have her first baby and she wasn't been seen in the square since August. When last seen she had to exit quick smart as she had just attacked Phil Mitchell with a spanner and left him for dead after she found him strangling Martin.

She may well be searching for the spanner again when she discovers that Martin (James Bye) has spent the lockdown isolating with her friend Ruby (Louisa Lytton).

Sen said producers had put an emphasis on capturing new viewers after the COVID-19 shutdown – this was effectively the beginning of EastEnders season two so they wanted to "make a huge noise about returning".

He added: "We all wanted EastEnders to return with a bang. We took a long time deciding how we could bring it back in the form we had seen it before. We wanted a huge level of ambition and we realised it’s an opportunity for a soap to have a great jumping-on point for an audience. A bit like season two. We want people to join. We put a lot of emphasis on where characters have been."

EastEnders will return on Monday, 7th September in 20-minute episodes, which reflected how difficult and how much slower filming had been while complying with the COVID-10 safety protocols.

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