EastEnders star Nitin Ganatra promises "very powerful" storyline for the Masoods

Referring to his current storyline as ‘very exciting’, he said: "It’s been a quiet time treading water for the Masoods for a couple of years. And suddenly the storyliners have created this beautiful thing and it’s going to be very powerful."

There is trouble currently brewing in the Masood house thanks to Shabnam trying to keep a lid on the fact that she once abandoned a child that she'd had with Dean Wicks on a doorstep.

Next week's episodes of the BBC1 soap will see Masood finally learn the truth, with Aunt Fatima revealing that she knows where the child is currently living.

When asked on today's edition of Loose Women whether he thought EastEnders had served the asian community well, Ganatra commented: “I think EastEnders has done something quite amazing with the Masood family. Certainly from my point of view - my character is accepted as a character now; they’re not really ‘the asian family’ anymore.

"The problem comes with diversity and representation. If you’ve only got one asian family, that falls under a big microscope and then has the responsibility of representing the whole Asian community and not everyone is going to be happy with that.

"So, in a way, if we had more asians and black faces on TV, the question wouldn’t arise. You’d say ‘I can choose that one or that one’. Because there’s only one [asian family] there’s a lot of pressure to get it right. Having said that, it’s been a very successful family and, on TV, I can’t think of another asian family that’s survived this long.”

You can watch a 60-second rundown of the coming week's episodes of EastEnders below.

And beneath that there's an interview with Davood Ghadami (Kush) and Rakhee Thakrar (Shabnam).

And visit our dedicated EastEnders page for all the latest news, interviews and spoilers.