Natalie Cassidy says she would have been a carer if she were not an actress, and now she is set to explore that path in an eight-part series for One and iPlayer. The EastEnders actor, who has played Sonia Fowler for 30 years, will train, listen and learn across a range of care settings, from early life through to palliative care.
The series comes from Big Mountain Productions and is built around observation and participation, with Cassidy moving through real health and social care environments rather than simply talking about them from the outside. She has long cared for her family in the background while working as an actress, including nursing her father, Charlie, through illness to the end of his life.
The project was commissioned after a conversation in which Cassidy was asked what she would be if she were not an actress, and she answered: a carer. That idea became the starting point for a production that aims to look closely at health and social care in Northern Ireland and beyond, with Big Mountain working with around 450 contributors across 24 institutions.
Big Mountain says the series is intended to entertain, inform and create a genuine sense of connection with audiences. The production was led by senior producer Ally Thompson and included people with experience in mental health, education and frontline care, giving the programme a grounding in the realities it is trying to show.
The tension in the project is built into the premise: Cassidy is entering a world she already knows from the edges, but this time the work is being made visible. That makes the series less a celebrity detour than a public look at the people and systems that carry care from birth to the end of life, and at what Cassidy’s own answer says about the life she might have led.
