'There is such a big shock on Christmas Day'
Alfie Moon’s secret, about being the father of Hayley Slater’s baby daughter Cherry, comes crashing down on Christmas Day and will provoke mixed emotions among viewers, claims EastEnders actor Shane Richie, who plays Kat Slater’s love-cheat husband.
“On Christmas Eve and leading up to the duff-duffs on Christmas evening, the audience will get torn between feeling Alfie’s right, then Kat, then Hayley… That’s the strength of EastEnders – you create mixed feelings for the audience,” said Shane.
“There is such a big shock on Christmas Day. When I read the script I thought: ‘Oh, you can’t do that… we’ve tipped it over the edge now!’ It’s a massive cliffhanger.”
Though Shane wasn’t able to expose the ins and outs of the Slater-shattering story, he revealed it will delve deep into the Moon couple’s richly chequered past.
“The whole history – that’s 17 or 18 years of Kat and Alfie – is bought up and played out over Christmas week,” said Shane.
[Check out when the BBC1 soap is on over Christmas]
Though viewers know from past experience that no good will come from such an epic betrayal, the actor reckons his character Alfie thinks he could get his wife Kat to roll with it!
“That’s the lovely thing about playing Alfie, there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel,” commented Shane. “In Alfie’s head he thinks he can talk to Kat, let her know he’s the father of the baby and she’ll be fine about it and could even adopt the child. He’s convinced it can work.”
But how will Kat react? We can't imagine she'll be "fine about it" like Alfie hopes, that's for sure!
EastEnders continues on BBC1.
