{"id":598863,"date":"2026-05-22T23:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T23:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/598863\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T23:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T23:44:11","slug":"eastenders-natalie-cassidy-opens-up-about-very-daunting-new-bbc-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/598863\/","title":{"rendered":"EastEnders’ Natalie Cassidy opens up about “very daunting” new BBC role"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

“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<\/a>).<\/p>\n

There, they will be “facing the realities, heartbreak and joy of caring. Together they\u2019ll 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?” <\/p>\n

\"natalie<\/p>\n

Photographer:\/\/BBC<\/p>\n

Related: Best streaming services UK 2026 \u2013 including Disney Plus, Netflix, iPlayer and Apple TV<\/a><\/p>\n

Cassidy, who is known for playing Sonia Fowler<\/a> on the BBC soap<\/a>, appeared on The One Show<\/a> 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. <\/p>\n

“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.” <\/p>\n

“I haven’t been at school since I was 16, EastEnders<\/a> 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?'” <\/p>\n

“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”.<\/p>\n

\"natalie<\/p>\n

Photographer:\/\/BBC<\/p>\n

Related: EastEnders’ Natalie Cassidy reveals the one thing that would bring her back to the soap<\/a> <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Caring Together premieres at 1.30pm on BBC One on Monday 25 May. EastEnders airs on Mondays-Thursdays at 7.30pm on BBC One. The show also streams on BBC iPlayer, where most episodes drop early at 6am ahead of their TV broadcast.<\/p>\n

Read more EastEnders spoilers on our dedicated homepage<\/a><\/p>\n

Visit our Streaming Guide<\/a> now to see at a glance where you can view ALL your favourite shows and movies.<\/p>\n

The new edition of Living Legends, a collector’s edition exploring the royal family, is here! Buy The Royals in newsagents or online<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former EastEnders star Natalie Cassidy has opened up about her new BBC documentary, Caring Together. The eight-part series,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[149238,147950,185397,379,204476,381,96,190731,1156,204475,148025,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-598863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-collection-documentary","tag-collection-latest-news","tag-collection-the-one-show","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-e9c40820-d857-46cf-a7ce-2ab62835d6c2","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-entertainment","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-gb","tag-shorttitle-eastenders-star-opens-up-about-very-daunting-new-bbc-role","tag-subsection-eastenders","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598863","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=598863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}