Bonnie Langford: 42nd Street joy is opposite of EastEnders

Bonnie Langford says the "utter joy" of starring in ’42nd Street’ is the "polar opposite" of ‘EastEnders’.
The 54-year-old actress quit her role as Carmel Kazemi on the BBC One soap due to the show’s "gruelling" schedule, and while she is enjoying her new role as Dorothy Brock in the hit musical, Bonnie hinted she will be back on the serial at some point.
She said: "It’s the polar opposite, this is just utter joy. And yet, being in ‘EastEnders’ was wonderfully challenging.
"The door is open."
Bonnie was "so proud" to be part of such a huge ‘EastEnders’ storyline which saw Carmel’s son Shakil Kazemi (Shaheen Jafargholi) stabbed to death by a knife crime gang, and she was pleased show bosses were keen to invest so much into the hard-hitting plot.
Speaking on ‘This Morning’, she added: "’EastEnders’ were so sensitive with the material and they invested so much. It wasn’t a case of, ‘Some dreadful event happened, a couple of weeks later it’s all forgotten and we go onto the next thing.’
"They’ve looked at it from every possible angle and treated it with integrity, and I was so proud to be a part of that, but it is gruelling churning that out.
"For audiences to keep watching someone who is broken that person needs to be broken because you would be. So what I didn’t want to do was suddenly turn round and it will all be forgotten."
Bonnie recently admitted she needed to "come up for air" after finding it was tough to arrange anything in her private life due to her filming commitments on ‘EastEnders’.
She added: "In ‘EastEnders’, you don’t know when you are going to be needed, you are on call all the time and don’t know your availability until the Friday before.
"Silly things, like booking a dentist appointment, become impossible. That sounds like a stupid thing to have as an issue, but after a while you don’t know where you are. I started to think I needed to come up for air a little bit.
"I needed to do other stuff, to get out there and feed that other part of my soul. You have to nurture the whole lot, otherwise you can’t do your job properly."