Diane Parish has defended the storylines that EastEnders bosses come up with.
The 44-year-old actress, who plays Ian Beale's (Adam Woodyatt) downtrodden fiancée Denise Fox in the BBC One soap, thinks the show wouldn't be as popular if it wasn't for its dark plot.
Credit: BBCShe told The Sun newspaper: "There is no drama if everybody is having a lovely time, singing happy songs."
Diane has played Denise on the series since May 2006, during which her character was abused by her ex-hubby Owen Turner (Lee Ross) and had a short-lived marriage to Kevin Wicks (Phil Daniels) which ended in his death.
She was also set to walk out on fiancé Ian - who recently cheated on her with ex-wife Jane - last month, but ultimately decided to stay with him after news broke of his daughter Lucy's grisly murder.
Diane explained that the increasingly glum plot is all the more "exciting" for her as she felt her story lines needed expanding,
She said: "I don't feel exhausted by all of this Lucy Beale murder drama - I feel revived! It's no secret that I had been quite quiet in the show for a while, so when I heard about this storyline and what our new boss Dominic [Treadwell-Collins] had planned for Denise, I was dead excited."
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