has recalled her brief time on the set of and admits she would have preferred to have been paid in merchandise.
The former EastEnders actress, 56, became a household name when she played Walford resident Heather Trott in hundreds of the popular soap, joining the cast in (year).
Cheryl has since gone on to star in sitcoms and West End musicals, and most recently appeared in Catherine Tate’s – though she still .
But before ever stepping on to the cobbled stones of Albert Square, Cheryl had a role in another BBC behemoth.
Back in 2005, the actress appeared in two episodes of Doctor Who, alongside Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor and Billie Piper as companion Rose Tyler.
The fan-favourite two-parter, The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances, were penned by Steven Moffatt years before he took over as showrunner, and sees Rose, the Doctor and Captain Jack Harkness run around London during the Blitz.
Cheryl had a small role in the episode as Mrs Loyd, whose house orphaned children break into to steal food when the family rush down to the shelter during air raids.
Asked about her time on Doctor Who by Metro.co.uk, Cheryl joked there was ‘always a connection’, as Hard Cell writer Catherine also starred in the show as companion Donna Noble.
‘I would have loved to have played an assistant,’ Cheryl admitted. ‘Wouldn’t we all?’
‘But I was absolutely, completely blessed to have been in that [episode].’
She explained that her son ‘was a complete and utter Doctor Who fanatic’ at the time, and wanted to be paid ‘not in money, but I wish I’d been paid in merchandise!’
‘He just wanted everything going, the sonic screwdrivers to Cyberman hats and Daleks and Oods and goodness knows what,’ she recalled.
‘I remember saying to producers, “Could you not just pay me in merchandise? It would be easier to cart that to my son!”‘
Cheryl admitted she got ‘no kudos’ from her son for landing a regular role in EastEnders, ‘but when I got into Doctor Who I was mum of the year.’
Her episodes feature one of the show’s creepiest and most heartbreaking moments (and as any Who fan will tell you, there are a lot of them) with little boy Jamie, Ki**ed in an air raid, haunting the streets of London in a gas mask and asking: ‘Are you my mummy?’
Plenty of actors take little mementos from the films or TV shows they’ve worked on over the years, but for Cheryl, that would have proved difficult.
‘There wasn’t much you could carry from my set,’ she said. ‘Other than an air raid shelter or gas mask!’
In the same interview with Metro.co.uk, Cheryl spoke about new mockumentary sitcom Hard Cell, where she plays herself: a former soaps star hired by prison governess Laura to help put on a production of West Side Story.
The show sees Cheryl constantly subjected to EastEnders references, with the inmates mockingly singing the theme song at her and one particularly star-struck prison guard repeatedly calling her Heather and asking if she’s going home to Albert Square.
And it turns out, art really does reflect life, with Cheryl admitting people like prison guard Gary really do exist – and ‘obviously, people kind of shout Heather at me in the street’.
‘I have come across people like [Gary], I can’t deny it,’ she says.
‘There are people who shout out “How’s Minty, how’s baby George?”, and I just think… it’s not real! Do you know it’s not real?’
Perhaps Doctor Who fans could take to calling her Mrs Lloyd on the street – it would likely earn her more kudos from her son.
