Comic actress Kathy Burke has opened up on her previous offer to appear on long-running BBC soap opera EastEnders, and made a brutal confession as to why she rejected it

Kathy Burke has revealed the reason she rejected a role in BBC soap EastEnders.

The 60-year-old comedienne – who is pals with Billy Mitchell actor Perry Fenwick – has admitted she “can’t stand” the long-running soap, so didn’t want to play any part in it.

Speaking on the Where There’s A Will, There’s A Wake podcast, Kathy explained she once had a conversation about making an appearance on the Walford cobbles. She said: “I was asked to do ‘EastEnders’ and no, no, no, I f****** hate ‘EastEnders’. I can’t stand it.”

She went on to double down her thoughts, insisting: “In fact, if I’m flicking my television, even if I hear the theme – I have a real ‘EEUURGHH’ reaction to it.”

Kathy Burke isn’t a fan of EastEnders ( 
Image:
Flicker Productions)

Despite her attitude towards the show, the comedy actress still admires the show’s cast and crew for their work. The London-born star added: “Sorry to everybody involved. I know everyone’s got a job to do – I admire you all greatly, but nah!”

Actor pal Perry previously appeared on Kathy’s podcast in 2023. At the time, the 62-year-old actor revealed that he “spent a lot of time in hospital” as a child after a series of near-death experiences. He told his friend: “From the age of none to ten, I think I spent quite a lot of that time in hospital.

“I electrocuted myself when I was three. I was playing with a bowl of soapy water on the rug, and I thought how interesting it would be to put those three fingers of mine in the water and put them in that plug hole in the wall.

“At which point, my mum is watching television and was aware of this ‘thing’ going right across to the other side of the room. I fell off a bridge. We used to have an iron bridge near where I lived, and you used to have to do this dare where you walked over the arch of this bridge.

“I had a wobble, fell off of it, and it was about twenty-five to thirty feet.

“There was a little stream running underneath it with these mud banks next to it and luckily for me, someone had got into DIY early by removing some of the railway sleepers, otherwise as this was in the ’60s, if I would have hit one of them, that would have been it.”