\nEastEnders actress Cheryl Fergison returns to our screens in homegrown soap just months after she suffered a stroke.\n<\/p>\n
It felt like a new beginning, she says now, when she arrived in Dublin to begin filming a fun new soap \u2013 Centra Deli Drama \u2013 for the Irish retail brand.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had cancer in the past, and thank the gods that I\u2019ve recovered from that. But this was something that literally came out of the blue,\u201d says the UK actress, who played Heather Trott in the hugely popular soap opera. She suffered the stroke in May.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was walking down the seafront in the morning with my son. In the evening, I was falling out of bed, and that was it. I couldn\u2019t walk. I was taken to hospital – blue lights and all of that. I couldn\u2019t walk for about a week or so.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cheryl with actress Jennifer Zamparelli on the Centra Deli Drama set<\/p>\n
In the months since, she has worked hard on her recovery. \u201cI walk with a stick, quite confidently. Without a stick, I\u2019m getting further and further.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m doing bits, then I puff myself out. I have to just have a sit down, and I\u2019m fine. The right side of me is still a little bit numb, but I couldn\u2019t even raise this hand before. I couldn\u2019t even put my fork to my mouth. But it\u2019s very heavy \u2013 my hand is heavy.\u201d<\/p>\n
As well as fears for her health, Cheryl feared that she may have to give up the acting career she adores. Taking on the social media campaign in Ireland, she says, helped give her the impetus to get back on track.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Eastenders star Cheryl Fergison returns home to appear on our screens in homegrown soap Centra Deli Drama<\/p>\n
News in 90 Seconds – Saturday, November 8 <\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of work, it was devastating. I just thought, that\u2019s it. I\u2019ll never work again. I live for my work, I really do. Then along came Centra and they took a punt on me, and they went: \u2018You know what? We know what\u2019s happened to you\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were sympathetic, empathetic, they adapted stuff to help me, and it was the light that I saw. When I got told I was (getting) the job, my head automatically went to: \u2018That\u2019s what I\u2019m getting better for, the next stage. That\u2019s what I\u2019m going to be able to do. There are several people who have taken a shot on me, and it\u2019s getting better and better\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n
The actress brings her soap skills to the fun social series written by Sharon Mannion (The Young Offenders) and featuring a cast which also includes Jennifer Zamparelli.<\/p>\n
![\"Cheryl](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/2f2d2a12-fb88-4516-be18-879a7a2df3b6.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Cheryl and EastEnders co-star Cliff Parisi at the British Soap Awards in 2009<\/p>\n
Filmed in the store\u2019s Drumcondra branch, it aims to tap into the Irish spirit of community life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like a miniature soap in itself and it has all these amazingly funny characters that you take to within seconds \u2013 they\u2019re in-your-face characters. It\u2019s a brilliant idea and a new concept,\u201d says the actress, who was greeted by some of Ireland\u2019s many EastEnders fans while spending time here.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re shooting at night, the shop was closed at night and we had to get all the shooting done within the hours of when people left the shop to the early hours of the morning,\u201d recalls Cheryl. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat was fun in itself, because the delivery people come, and there was a couple of guys looking at me, waving, and they weren\u2019t so sure. As soon as I opened my mouth, it was: \u2018Oh, hello!\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
Over her busy career, Cheryl has starred in shows including The IT Crowd, Little Britain, Casualty and Dr Who as well as her busy stage career.<\/p>\n
But it was as the hilarious Heather Trott \u2013 known for her love of cheese, karaoke and George Michael \u2013 on the BBC soap that she first made a name for herself.<\/p>\n
Introduced as a guest character in 2007, she would go on to play Heather for five years. <\/p>\n
It was a role that changed her life as an up-and-coming actress, she remembers fondly. \u201cWhen I first joined EastEnders, I\u2019d watched it from day one, so I was absolutely so humbled to be in a place where I loved and I had watched these characters on my screen. They\u2019d come and gone, and there were iconic characters still going. People like<\/p>\n
Phil Mitchell, played by Steven McFadden, who is now like my big brother in real life, I\u2019m godmother to his kids.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did work hard to do this and get there, because of my passion and my love for things, and my positivity, which is something that I\u2019ve always had.<\/p>\n
People say to me, is your glass half full or half empty? And I say, I\u2019m lucky to have a glass at all. In a way, the thing about EastEnders was the same – they gave me a chance, and I ran with that character, and it was fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cheryl with the cast of Centra Deli Drama<\/p>\n
She is grateful to the medics and loved ones who helped her get back on her feet this summer, in particular her son Alex Siddiqi, also an actor and writer, for his care and support. \u201cHe\u2019s been my rock, and he\u2019s there, and he just flourishes, and that\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
In recent weeks she brought out her autobiography Behind the Scenes, which she was encouraged to write by her Irish friend Maureen Nolan, of The Nolan Sisters fame, with whom she previously starred in Menopause the Musical.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t believe in biographies that are written and they skim over the surface,\u201d she says of the experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just want to put lots of pictures in it and just tell you all about the wonderful things they\u2019ve done in their life. That\u2019s not my book. My book is there to basically be a lifeline for some people, I think, in some ways. <\/p>\n
\u201cYes, it tells the great people I\u2019ve met, people I\u2019ve worked with, some very funny stories involving Paul O\u2019Grady and George Michael and Dame Barbara Windsor. But it\u2019s also about my life and my struggles.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u25a0 The four-part dramedy started last week and the final episode will air on December 1 on Centra\u2019s social channels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EastEnders actress Cheryl Fergison returns to our screens in homegrown soap just months after she suffered a stroke.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-251907","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}