Overview

• Michelle Collins will temporarily step away from portraying Cindy Beale to concentrate on her one-woman show at the Edinburgh Fringe.
• Motorhome Marilyn, entirely written and performed by Collins, follows Denise, an aspiring actress navigating an obsessive fascination with Marilyn Monroe.
• EastEnders executives sanctioned the leave on the grounds that outside projects help actors return to the soap refreshed.
• Collins said she will miss her character deeply and expects to feel both renewed and tired by the end of her theatre run.
• The play opens later this month in Edinburgh, highlighting Collins’s ongoing blend of long-running television commitments and personal stage ventures.