Ex ‘EastEnders’ star Caroline Paterson made an emotional return to Walford after two decades.
Caroline Paterson loved returning to the EastEnders set
The 57-year-old actress - who played Ruth Aitken, the second wife of Mark Fowler (Todd Carty) - visited the Elstree studio where the BBC One soap is filmed through her work directing with the ‘River City’ academy training scheme and marvelled at how the fictional London borough looked “better” than it did during her stint 20 years ago.
She told the Radio Times.com: "I mean, the way people view it is completely different. You know, they use different cameras - I think it looks better.
"And then compared to when I was in it, one of the things that I really noticed was how diverse it is. And I just felt that this is starting to reflect London. Whereas when I was in it, you know, it just wasn't there. So I'm really over the moon that that has completely changed."
Caroline added that the changes to the set were “all for the better” amid the soap’s “move with the times” as she reminisced about her involvement in Mark’s storyline of coming to terms with having HIV while acknowledging the similarities
She said: "Stories haven't changed really. They still do huge stories about what happens in society and I'm just thinking about Mark Fowler's HIV story, we were doing that and there was a lot of fear in the public. That was such a huge story due to actually what it informed the audience, you know, this fear shouldn't be there. And I thought it was a great story."
"I noticed that they had an HIV story with Zack and I was amazed. Thank goodness. Then when I was in EastEnders, HIV was this scary thing that could come out, it was kept secret, but it just shows how far society has come so far."
The former ‘Coronation Street’ actress revealed she now mainly works as a director on Scottish soap 'River City' and is “really enjoying” learning more about the craft.
She said: "This is my first training and I'm loving it and loving learning it because ‘River City’ works in a completely different way from what I worked. So I'm really enjoying this training. I'm like, 'Let me learn a new skill'. I'm really loving concentrating on directing at the moment."