EastEnders Live can we get any clues about who killed Lucy from Jane Beale actress Laurie Brett?

As BBC One prepares to reveal the killer of Lucy Beale, we grill the actress who plays her step mum Jane!

It’s the show that Laurie Brett can’t stay away from.

EastEnders has its hooks in the Hamilton-born star and, like a fish on a line, it reels her back in each time she tries to slip away. Not that she minds.

In fact, as she takes a welcome time-out to tell all to The Sunday Post, she admits she loves it even though her plain Jane could turn out to be a killer.

Yes, you know, the one who bumped off Lucy Beale in the biggest soapy whodunit since a Texas oilman with a big hat took a slug.

Laurie, 45, was a Walford fixture for years from 2004 and then had a six-month maternity break when she had baby Erin in 2011.

She left again a few months later, popped back last year for a few months and has now been wooed again on a longer deal.

“It was the executive producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins who was determined for Jane to come back,” confides Laurie as she steps off the set.

“We had some dinner and a chat. I told him I was doing Waterloo Road at the time but he said why didn’t I come back and do a few months in my break.

“It was more for him really but to be honest I like the buzz and the excitement. To film at this pace you either love it or you hate it and I love it.

“Other people would much prefer to do a whole day waiting around to do one scene. That would bore me to tears. And I like the people who work behind the scenes.

“You spend more time with them than anyone else in your life when you’re heavily storylined, so it’s really important you all get on. It’s not showbiz, it’s just a job but it’s my kind of bag really.”

There are official state secrets that are easier to glean than the murderer of young Lucy.

The revelation is, of course, the culmination of the live week of programmes to mark the 30 years Albert Square has been a fixture on our screens.

That episode will also have Jane and Adam Woodyatt’s Ian Beale walking down the aisle once more and viewers are picking the wedding song from a selection of five “classics” from 1985.

“I’ve played her through some pretty spectacular stuff,” Laurie muses.

“You can be in quite extraordinary circumstances but Jane’s quite an ordinary woman and you have to keep hold of that.

“If I don’t know her by now I never will. But, then again, you never know anybody completely and sometimes you can surprise yourself. We’ll just have to see what happens.”

Ah, so that surprise might be her being unmasked as the killer?

“I didn’t actually say that…” she laughs.

And not taking things too seriously is something Laurie does well, including finding herself on the bookies’ top shortlist of suspects.

“I think it’s gone round everybody, that’s how the bookies make their money. But it was funny when my mum called up and said I was the favourite.”

The killing is the thing everyone wants to talk to all the cast about, the topic of conversation that’s going to come up when you’ve just popped to the shops for a pinta.

“You’ve just got to smile sweetly and say as little as possible,” insists Laurie. I live in an area where there are loads of actors so I’m not a surprise to people.

“But frankly I’m working so much I don’t even get time to pop out for that pint of milk somebody else does it for me or I get it delivered!

“You just learn to cope with the attention and be as nice to people as you can.”

The special week of programmes which starts on Monday, February 15 will have live elements, leading up to the full live episode on the Friday.

It’s ramped up the workload for the cast who are filming full-on as usual while rehearsing for the crucial live show.

Laurie admits “everyone is a bit nervous” but while she’s just hoping nothing goes wrong to detract from the quality, she knows that’s an appeal for some.

“A lot of people will just watch to see if someone messes up it’s only human nature. We all like to see someone fall over. Hopefully not me!”

Getting away from the melting pot that comes with starring in a show such as EastEnders was easier for Laurie when she was up in Scotland filming Waterloo Road over the past couple of years.

She’s sanguine about the school drama’s demise “it had 10 great series and a lot of shows don’t get anywhere near that” and admits she would have been moving on even if it hadn’t been axed.

Her role as boozy teacher Christine Mulgrew got her a Scottish Bafta nod as well as the chance to be close to her family again.

And three-year-old Erin it’s been reported that Laurie recently split from Erin’s dad, husband John Milroy got a chance to pick up a bit of a Scottish accent.

But while Laurie says she can get her mum to send square sausage and Irn Bru to her London house via DHL, the capital is very much her base.

“London’s my home and has been for nearly 30 years,” she says.

“Scotland’s always somewhere I come back to three or four times a year and you don’t get banter anywhere like you do in Glasgow. But I don’t want to live permanently anywhere other than London.”

While for most of the time Laurie’s assertion that EastEnders is far from a showbiz life is doubtless true, the cast did get to let their hair down at the National Television Awards.

EastEnders won Serial Drama and Adam paid a poignant tribute to Corrie’s Anne Kirkbride, much-loved Deirdre.

“We were completely shocked by Anne’s death,” says Laurie quietly.

“I don’t know if the Coronation Street people knew she was ill but nobody here had any idea. I grew up watching Deirdre and Ken and 60 is so young.

“The thing that was no surprise to me was that Adam was so respectful in paying tribute to her in his speech. It couldn’t be any other way.”

OK, one last try. So, what would surprise people about Adam then perhaps like being a killer?

“I think I’ll just say he’s a great lover of wine and Liverpool. Anything else I’m sorry but I’m keeping to myself otherwise he might kill me!”