EastEnders is set for an explosive Christmas Day, according to stars Jessie Wallace and Michelle Ryan.

Opening up about the festive episode in a new interview, Jessie, 54, who plays Kat Slater, and Michelle, 41, who plays Zoe Slater and returned to the BBC One soap earlier this year after 20 years, shared some exciting teasers.

Michelle said: “These are the best scripts I’ve ever read and been part of in EastEnders even I think the two-hander we did is special and these ones for me are alongside that.”

To which Jessie added: “They’re brilliant. It’s like one thing after another after another just when you think you’re just getting over that then there’s something else. It’s like ‘hold on a minute, that’s just happened’ and it’s chaotic.

“As an actor when there’s so much going on, because of course we can’t tell you what’s going on, but that’s going on up there, that’s happened over there, she’s over there so it’s all these things that you’ve got to think about so it’s an explosion of stuff.”

The BBC soap legend added: “I have never known a Christmas episode like it that I’ve been part of anyway.”

Talking about reuniting with her on-screen daughter Michelle, Jessie said: “It’s lovely having Michelle back. I mean I’ve wanted her to come back for years not that you know I wanted you to go off and do other stuff but just working with you again it’s brilliant.

“It’s like when you see a member of your family you haven’t seen in years you just pick up straight away. We do work well together and I just hope the audience loves it.”

To which Michelle responded: “I don’t want to get emotional but working with Jessie is amazing and just to come back and to feel so supported is you make it so easy and I feel like our relationship is…

“I was thinking the other day it’s like one of the, not just the highlights of my career, but like having somebody in your corner and working so well with…

“We do work so well together and the episodes are just I’m getting goosebumps thinking about it so yeah it’s just brilliant.”

This prompted Jessie to tease: “It feels very special. I’ve never said that before but it does feel very special.”

It comes as EastEnders revealed earlier this week that Zoe’s daughter is both alive and a new resident in Albert Square. Since Michelle returned to the soap as Zoe earlier this year, her character has been determined to track down her long-lost son after giving birth to twins in 2006.

While she believed that her baby daughter had died shortly after child birth and that her now-grown up son was out there, Monday’s episode delivered a major twist in the story. After asking a colleague to look into files around babies being abandoned nearly 20 years ago, Anthony Trueman (Nicholas Bailey) learnt that Zoe had given birth to twins – and that he must be their father.

Anthony’s colleague also revealed that a note confirmed that Zoe’s daughter was resuscitated after Zoe left the hospital and was actually alive.

In following scenes, viewers then saw that newbie Jasmine Fisher (Indeyarna Donaldson-Holness) in a police station, telling a detective that she came to Albert Square to find her mother, before pointing to a photo of Zoe in a newspaper…