EastEnders' Nick Cotton favourite to return

EastEnders' Nick Cotton favourite to return (Image credit: BBC)

Nick Cotton is bookies' favourite to be the next character to return to EastEnders. Since it was announced on Thursday that Letitia Dean would be reprising her role as Sharon Watts in the BBC1 soap, Nasty Nick has been given odds of 2/1 from bookmakers Paddy Power to return to Walford. Dot's son Nick - played by John Altman - has been a recurring character since the soap's very first episode in February 1985. He was last seen fleeing Walford in 2009 after surviving an explosion at the cafe, following a plot to poison his long-suffering mother. Second favourites to return to the soap are Sonia Fowler, played by Natalie Cassidy, and Sam Mitchell, played by Danniella Westbrook, who are both set at 5/1. 'Little Mo' Mitchell, played by Kacey Ainsworth, is at 10/1 and Ronnie Mitchell, played by Samantha Womack, has odds of 12/1. Michelle Ryan is 16/1 to return as Zoe Slater, while long-gone Lofty Holloway, played by Tom Watt, is an outsider at 40/1. Michael French recently returned to the soap for a brief stint as David Wicks for the exit storyline of Pam St Clement - Walford matriarch Pat Evans. Nick Berry - who played his brother Simon Wicks from 1985 to 1990 - made a surprise appearance at Pat's graveside, after her funeral.

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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.