NEWEST UPDATE!!! 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.

A new television project is attracting attention as it follows a famous actress as she leaves the film industry to embark on a career in social care – a surprising yet profoundly humane choice.

The documentary, “A Caring Journey,” chronicles the actress’s participation in intensive training at a medical and social college, where she studies alongside young students preparing to become nurses, community support workers, and volunteer caregivers.

What makes the project special is its blend of entertainment and education. Instead of simply observing, the actress truly “lives” in the training environment: attending classes, interning at hospitals, and working at senior care centers, where she faces emotionally charged real-life situations.

From the very beginning, she admitted feeling “out of place” returning to a learning environment after years in the entertainment industry. “I didn’t know how I would be judged,” she shared. “I was older than most of the students there, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep up with them.”

However, what she didn’t expect was the warm welcome from the students and faculty. They helped her integrate, guided her step-by-step, and treated her like a real member of the class.

Over time, the actress began to change her perspective on the caregiving profession. While she previously viewed it only as a supportive job, she now understood it as one of the most skill- and emotionally demanding professions.

“You have to be both strong and gentle,” she said. “You have to know when to speak, when to be silent, and most importantly, you have to know how to listen.”

The program also explores real-life stories from patients and their families, creating touching moments as viewers witness the bond between caregivers and those being cared for. There are scenes without dialogue, just eye contact, gestures, and presence – yet they carry immense emotional weight.

The producers stated that the series’ goal is to raise awareness of the labor shortage in the social care sector and to honor those who work silently in this field every day.

Beyond its social impact, the program is deeply personal, documenting the protagonist’s inner transformation. From a celebrity accustomed to the spotlight, she gradually becomes an ordinary trainee, learning to face failure, exhaustion, and her own limitations.

At the end of the first filming phase, she shared that this experience changed her perspective on life: “I used to think success was being on stage or in front of the camera. But now I understand that sometimes success is simply being able to help someone on a difficult day.”

The series, scheduled to air weekly, promises to offer viewers not only the story of a celebrity, but also a deeper insight into the value of caring in modern society