Eastenders actress Lacey Turner has admitted that she hadn’t heard of bipolar disorder before her character Stacey Slater developed it on the soap.

Turner told MSN: “It was a real shock – I went to a storyline meeting and Diederick (Santer – the executive producer) said ‘how do you feel about bipolar?’ And I said ‘what’s bipolar?’ – I had no idea.”

She continued: “And I said ‘let’s go for it’ and we took it from there.”

The 21-year-old, who picked up the Ultimate TV Actress gong at the Cosmopolitan Ultimate Women Of The Year awards, said she “loved every minute” of the storyline but admitted it could be hard.

“It was mentally and physically exhausting at times. You are up and down, up and down, and because the schedule’s so quick you don’t really get time to turn it around and remember that you are Lacey and you are going home to have dinner with rest of your family. I think it was harder for them than it was for me.”