Polly Weeks talks to Lucy Speed about switching from BBC soap EastEnders to ITV’s long-running police drama The Bill.

TRUE to form, police drama The Bill will be marking the festive season with a storyline that’s more The Nightmare Before Christmas than something full of Seasons Greetings.

Attention will be focused on Lucy Speed, who plays DC Stevie Moss – and her dealings with a dodgy character played by Bill Ward – who will be familiar to Coronation Street viewers as bad boy Charlie Stubbs.

“He’s supposed to be in prison in Manchester, but he turns up in London,”

Lucy says, explaining that she and Bill’s character have some unfinished business.

“I decide to go undercover again, and he was someone I was undercover with for seven months. At the end of it, he got sent down for ten years, but that was only three years ago. I go back undercover to find out what’s going on with him now. He got out of prison because someone involved in the case withdraws a statement.

DC Moss goes back undercover to make sure the witness isn’t being threatened – and Lucy says “it all goes a bit crazy from then on”.

“There are some complicated bits and bobs going on with the case, and it forces her to go on the run, and everyone at Sun Hill thinks she’s turned bad.

Stuart is her handler, and the last two episodes are told in flashback.”

It’s an ambitious move for the long-running soap, and 32-year-old Lucy admits that filming did get confusing at times.

“With the different points of view needed for the flashback episodes, we did the same scene twice.

Once we were on location, we’d shoot everything for those episodes. We’d do it all at once, it was hard going. The whole lot took us about three months.”

While it was hard work, Lucy says she loved every minute.

“It’s a great idea, really novel,” she says. “It really works with this story. It saves the twists until the very end, and you only just figure it out in the last 20 minutes.”

Lucy won’t reveal what the twist is, but she’s obviously very happy at Sun Hill. “I started last October and it’s gone so quickly,”

she says.

“It’s been such good fun.

I’m here for definite until this time next year. And possibly for the foreseeable future after that. We’ll see how this year goes.”

Lucy’s not the only one who’s decided to make the change from another primetime soap to The Bill.

Former Hollyoaks stars Ali Bastian and Gary Lucy act alongside Lucy now, while other ex-EastEnders residents who’ve swapped Walford for the South London police station include Roberta Taylor, Gillian Taylforth and Todd Carty.

Lucy denies that it’s become the next port of call for those leaving EastEnders.

“I only knew Gilly (Gillian Taylforth), but there weren’t that many of the guys there when I was.

There’s only been about five people to move from EastEnders to The Bill in 25 years, but they all came in about the last five or six years.”

After a long stint as Natalie Evans on EastEnders she says it’s a relief to have a slightly lower profile.

“EastEnders and Corrie and those guys, the attention is just incredible,” she says. “Everyone watches it, but whoever you speak to will always say ‘I never watch the show, but weren’t you in EastEnders?”’ Lucy was 17 when she joined the iconic BBC soap and admits she was overwhelmed by the attention.

“I found it very difficult.

I’ve always said I admire the teenagers in soaps a lot because of how they’re able to deal with it now. I just left because it was scary. As a teenager, you don’t want people looking at you all the time. It’s fair enough when you’re on screen, but when you’re in the pub or walking down the road, you want the world to open up and drop you through the middle of it. I wasn’t great at the dealing with that attention.”

Now comfortable with her celebrity status, she loves playing a copper.

“Great fun, and we get to do lots of cool stuff. It’s like being a kid in school again. ”

With Christmas on the way Lucy will be taking a well-earned two weeks off, with family time top of her list.

“I’ll be at my mum and dad’s, seeing my nephews and spending time with my boyfriend. And lots and lots of food and sleep. It’ll be lovely.”

■ The Bill’s Santa’s Little Helper starring Lucy Speed and Bill Ward, ITV1, December 17.