EastEnders star Lorraine Stanley helps elderly neighbour celebrate birthday in isolation

EastEnders star Lorraine Stanley has shown she cares about her neighbours just as much as her soap character Karen Taylor.

The actress managed to rally together other residents on her street to help celebrate their elderly neighbour Allen's 95th birthday from a safe distance.

Sharing a touching video of the whole street singing Happy Birthday, she wrote: "So our neighbour,Allen is 95 today,I arranged all of the neighbours at 3.45pm to sing happy birthday to him!!

"You can’t see a lot of the people on the street as we were socially distancing but they were all out with banners #corona #socialdistancing #communityspirit."

The video got thousands of likes and retweets, and Lorraine was very thankful so many people saw it.

She wrote: "Thankyou for sharing!! He so deserves this," alongside three heart emojis.

Lorraine is currently off work as the BBC has stopped filming new episodes of the soap, due to the coronavirus outbreak.

A spokesperson explained the amount of episodes broadcast each week will be reduced from four to two in order to keep fans enjoying the BBC soap for as long as possible.

Episodes will now air on Mondays at 8pm and Tuesdays at 7:30pm only with immediate effect.

The statement read: "In light of the spread of Covid-19, after much consideration, it has been decided that filming on EastEnders will be postponed until further notice. The decision was made after the latest government update."

Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks have all shut down filming due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The shows have all cut down the amount of episodes shown each week in order to keep the soaps on TV for as long as possible, with them all saying they have enough episodes up until the school summer holidays.