Pauline Quirke, Lesley Joseph and Linda Robson
Linda Robson will pay tribute to the late Lynda Bellingham in 'Birds of a Feather'.
The 56-year-old actress has confessed she asked bosses of the ITV comedy to give her character Tracey a cancer scare storyline after her former 'Loose Women' colleague lost her battle with colon cancer earlier this year.
Tracey will be seen struggling to show her sister Sharon (Pauline Quirke) and pal Dorien (Lesley Joseph) a growth she finds and the plot is Linda's way of raising awareness of cancer, which also ended her father's life and affected her mother.
She shared: "We were thinking of storylines and what women our age will be facing every day. You get a lump, you worry about everything, you lose somebody and start worrying about things and I think it's important we touched on a health scare in the show."
However, the stars of the show insist the difficult storyline will not prevent some scenes from providing plenty of laughs.
Pauline told The Sun newspaper: "It is a comedy show - we don't want people watching it and slitting their wrists. It's about relationships.
"Sharon is hurt Tracey hasn't confided in her and also Sharon is facing up to the fear of what she would do if anything happened to Tracey."
'Birds of a Feather' continues tomorrow (01.01.14) night at 8.30pm on ITV.
Tagged in Pauline Quirke Linda Robson Lesley Joseph