EastEnders writer Sarah Phelps has explained how she wrote the iconic Peggy Mitchell's "outstanding" exit episode.
Peggy made her exit from Walford in May 2016 when late actor Barbara Windsor bowed out from the soap, with Peggy choosing to end her own life after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.
The emotional episode saw Pam St Clement return to film new scenes as Pat Butcher, as Peggy spoke to a vision of Pat and told her, "I will go as I have lived. Straight back, head high, like a queen."
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Phelps, who has written over 90 episodes of EastEnders during her career, has now opened up to Stacey Slater star Lacey Turner about writing that important script.
Speaking on the second episode of Turner's new soap podcast We Started Here, which is available on all podcast platforms now, Phelps said that she wanted to give Peggy "a proper out" due to her being "one of those great matriarchs".
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"I wanted it to be about, not just Peggy Mitchell, but I wanted it to be about Barbara Windsor," she said. "And I wanted it to be almost a kind of sense that Peggy took herself apart and put herself back together again.
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"And some people said to me, 'Oh no'. I said, 'I want Peggy to be seen without her 'Peggy-ness', without the hair, without the makeup, without the clothes, and they went, 'Barbara won't do that'. And I went, 'You watch me!'"
Phelps went on to say that she "adored" Windsor "so much" because "she trusted us that we would do right by her".
"She really, really leant into that thing where she took it off and she was vulnerable," she added. "But it was that line that I go for her which is, 'I will go as I have lived, head high straight back like a queen' and I just was really proud of that.
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"And I think Barbara was outstanding and I thought Pam was outstanding and it was so moving, and it was a proper exit for a true soap matriarch and a cultural icon."
Turner has already spoken to her EastEnders co-star Jessie Wallace (Kat Slater) for her podcast, with Wallace calling for a major Slater return to happen.
Future episodes will feature the likes of EastEnders icon Anita Dobson, who played Angie Watts, and former Hollyoaks actors Ricky Whittle (Calvin Valentine) and Mandip Gill (Phoebe McQueen).
EastEnders airs on Mondays-Thursdays at 7.30pm on BBC One. The show also streams on BBC iPlayer, where most episodes drop early at 6am ahead of their TV broadcast.
