EastEnders’ Suki and Cindy stars worked together 10 years ago on rival soap

EastEnders icons Michelle Collins and Balvinder Sopal once worked together on a rival soap over 10 years before they appeared in the BBC soap together

Balvinder Sopal and Michelle Collins star in Coronation Street

EastEnders stars Michelle Collins and Balvinder Sopal once worked together on a rival soap over 10 years ago.

Michelle has recently returned to the BBC soap, where she plays Cindy Beale, whilst Balvinder has starred as Suki Panesar for some time on the programme. However, the pair have actually appeared on a rival soap before and even been in the very same scene.

Eagle eyed soap fans have unearthed a clip of Michelle and Balvinder starring on Coronation Street over a decade ago. In the scene, Michelle Collins plays Rovers Return landlady Stella Price, whilst Balvinder Sopal plays a police officer who has come to interview Jason Grimshaw (Ryan Thomas) about his stolen van. Sat in the Rovers together, the couple are soon interrupted by the arrival of two police officers and Balvinder’s character is quick to question Jason about his involvement in the missing van.

Michelle played Stella Price on Coronation Street

“We have a witness statement,” Balvinder’s character said as Jason quizzed what witness that might be. “Just hang on a minute, who is this witness?” he asked, before the police officer told him: “We’d like to ask you a few questions in private.”

As he protested over it, Michelle’s character Stella urged him to calm down and answer the questions, before the police woman threatened to take him to the station. They all went into the back to discuss what happened, and fans couldn’t believe that the pair had shared a screen before their time on EastEnders together, and in a rival soap too.

Michelle previously revealed how grateful she was to be back on EastEnders, as her character Cindy returned ‘from the dead’.

Suki star Balvinder Sopal played a police officer

Speaking about her return, she said: “When I met Chris [Clenshaw, EastEnder’s executive producer], I’d heard that this new producer was really fantastic and everyone was saying he was great, and when I met him and he showed us [me and my agent] the storyline on his laptop we were kind of both taken aback really and I just thought ‘wow’, ‘if they really can make it work, then maybe yes’. A year down the line, here I am.

“It was really exciting. It totally came out of the blue and I think it’s all about timing, and it just felt like it was the right time. I really felt like I was in good hands with Chris and that he really wanted to invest in the character. I didn’t want to come back for just a week as I didn’t think it would be worthwhile and I wanted it to be handled well for people to believe in that character. It felt like the right point in my life for it to happen and I think Chris is great for the show. He has a lot of respect for everybody in the show. It feels very much like an ensemble show at the moment which I think is really important and everyone is really supportive of each other.”

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