'EastEnders' Pat tribute was moving, says Pam St Clement

EastEnders legend Pam St Clement has revealed that she was "moved" by the BBC's Farewell Pat tribute.

The 30-minute special was screened by BBC One on Monday evening - a day after viewers had watched the actress's iconic character Pat Evans pass away from cancer. The programme took a look back at some of Pat's best moments and included behind-the-scenes access.

Speaking on Daybreak this morning, St Clement confirmed that she watched her final EastEnders episode with family and friends on New Year's Day - before tuning in for the tribute the following evening.

St Clement explained: "I wasn't going to watch [the final episode] with anybody - I was going to record it and then watch it in a darkened room somewhere, where I could be terribly critical and jump about saying, 'Stupid woman - why did you play it like that?'

"But everybody said, 'Oh no, sit down'. I said, 'I don't want to disturb you all' - but I did make myself behave! And I was quite dispassionate, actually. The strange thing is, after I read the script, I was very moved by it. But as soon as I started working on it, I think everybody did start getting quite emotional - but I couldn't.

"Even about myself leaving - people in the cast would come up and say, 'How do you feel?' and I'd say, 'I can't go there, I can't think about that, because the work's not finished'.

"The strange thing is, the only thing that moved me was the Farewell Pat programme. Which is strange, but I suppose that was personal in a sense."



St Clement also discussed the experience of filming Pat's final episode, which saw the matriarch's loved ones gathering to say goodbye before she died.

"It was a great challenge, that script," she commented. "I looked at it and thought, 'Oh, heck, how do I give light and shade to something where somebody is actually dying?'

"And some of the scenes could have been interpreted as being somewhat similar with Janine and David. So I had to make them different - but I had to make them different within the confines of the illness."

EastEnders will air Pat's funeral episode on Friday, January 13 at 8pm on BBC One.

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> EastEnders: Pat Evans's funeral in pictures
> EastEnders' Pam St Clement: 'I didn't want Pat to die'
> Read more EastEnders news and spoilers

Watch some of Pat's EastEnders best bits in the video below: