Cathy returns to EastEnders for 3rd different role

Cathy Murphy is joining the EastEnders cast for the third time - to make a hat-trick of different roles on the show. The star - whose previous shows have included BBC One hit The House Of Elliott - will play Julie Perkins, a face from Billy Mitchell's past. Cathy will be familiar to audiences from her spell in Walford in 2005 as Trisha Taylor. But she made her debut on the programme several years earlier with a small Albert Square role. Soap bosses describe her latest EastEnders incarnation as an 'antidote to the snarling women of Albert Square'. A spokesman for the soap said: "Julie and Billy have a real connection despite being out of each other's lives since they were teenagers. "She's a true Cockney sparrow and tells it like it is. However, Billy is staggered to learn he may have more skeletons in the closet waiting to be discovered." Cathy said: "Like our characters, I've known Perry since I was 16 and he is a brilliant actor. "We've never worked together before so I am looking forward to getting stuck into our fantastic rollercoaster of a story." Click here to watch whatsontv.co.uk’s weekly soaps video preview, the Soap Scoop Get EastEnders storylines first! Sign up to receive our EastEnders Extra newsletter

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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.