Feisty Bianca to return to EastEnders

LONDON, Oct 29 (Reuters) Feisty red-headed Bianca Jackson is to return to EastEnders, the BBC announced today.

Played by actress Patsy Palmer, Bianca is to move back in to Albert Square eight years after walking out on a stormy marriage with mechanic Ricky Butcher.

Bianca, who never minced her words, appeared in a one-off episode of the long-running soap in 2002, before abandoning the East End for a new life in Manchester.

She returns to live with her grandmother Pat Evans after a string of failed relationships, and with children said to be fathered by different men.

Palmer begins filming in January and will be back on TV screens in March.

The 35-year-old actress said she was ''really excited about rejoining the cast and working with old friends again''.

''I can't wait to explore what Bianca has been doing with her life and seeing what she is going to get up to next,'' she said on the BBC Web site.

Previous episodes during Jackson's six-year stint on the soap included her trying to seduce David Wicks, unaware he was her father, forcing out Natalie from Albert Square after she discovered her best friend was having a fling with Ricky, and being disowned by her mother after rekindling an earlier affair with Carol's boyfriend.

Since leaving the series in 1999, Palmer has appeared on the West End stage and competed in the third series of the celebrity ballroom dancing television competition ''Strictly Come Dancing''.

Reuters SKB RN1751