Lacey Turner quitting EastEnders

Lacey Turner quitting EastEnders (Image credit: BBC)

Lacey Turner is leaving EastEnders, the BBC has confirmed. Lacey will bow out of the BBC1 soap later this year after five years playing Stacey Branning, saying: "the time has come to try something different". Stacey's on-screen mother Jean - played by Gillian Wright - will also be quitting the soap this year. EastEnders new boss Bryan Kirkwood described Lacey as "one of the best young actress on TV at the moment" and said the door would be left open for the character to return in the future. She said: "I've had the most fantastic time at EastEnders. Stacey has been a brilliant role - as has being part of the feisty Slater family. "I'm so lucky to have had such challenging storylines, from the affair with Max and being diagnosed with bipolar, to the shock of being revealed as Archie's killer during the live episode. "I'll miss Stacey and everyone in Albert Square but the time has come to try something different." In the five years she's played Stacey, Lacey has won 28 top acting awards. Click here to watch whatsontv.co.uk's weekly soaps video preview, the Soap Scoop

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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.