I missed Michael French when he left Eastenders to do other work and was so thrilled that he came back to see Pat out. Not only because I wanted to work with him again, but because I felt it was essential for the story. Pat spends most of her last day on earth anticipating David’s arrival. As her undeserving but favourite son, it is only dramatically right that she dies in his arms.

Pam St Clement

My onscreen family included Michael French playing David Wicks, with whom I loved working; not only is he a good actor who makes demands on himself, but he has great onscreen presence. He can also be very naughty! He is one of the few people who not only corpsed me on set, but had me in a state of something approaching hysteria. The sort of laughter that bursts out of your body at the most inappropriate moments and that you can’t contain. In fact, to regain any control at all you have to leave the set. This was impossible during a party at the fowlers’ house when michael put a bunch of watercress in the hair of one of his least favourite characters. It went unnoticed for the entire scene, apart from the two knowing miscreants who were choking with laughter. Fortunately we were just extras in that situation.

Lisa Maxwell

As soon as I arrived I saw Michael French, who was just so lovely and generous and kind, so I was immediately put at ease.

Lisa Maxwell

I can honestly say it’s one of the happiest jobs I’ve done, Michael French is an amazing actor and to be part of such an iconic characters return to the square felt very special.

Nitin Ganatra

Michael is a very good actor. We’ve all worked together really well. He’s got a real energy about him, he works very, very hard and he’s very focused on set. He has a lot of energy, which is fantastic for me, as every single take I have someone to bounce off.

Terry Alderton

Even though I’m a stand-up, its actually the other cast who make me laugh, especially Michael French, who is hilarious. He’s like ‘what do you mean I’m funny? You’re funny.’

Rita Simons

Michael French is such a good actor, I was watching the Christmas Day episode, and considering he hasn’t been here for years it was amazing, he is so talented. And gorgeous!

Paul Nicholls

A lot of that credit has to also go to Michael French, who plays David, Joe’s dad. What a brilliant, brilliant actor. I was beyond lucky to work closely with him and we also had a real laugh together, which helped to keep the atmosphere light. It made the work we had to do more bearable.

Gillian Taylforth

He strode up to the counter and said, ‘Give us a sausage sandwich will you Kath?, I don’t know what it was but we both felt this hysterical laughter attack coming on. David sat down and I marched over with the sandwich in one hand and a bottle of brown sauce in the other. I was sniping at him. ‘Do you want sauce David?’ He said ‘Er, Yeah’ and as I started pouring the sauce, the sausage rolled out of the sandwich. We both started laughing and suddenly the crew said ‘check’ which meant the scene was done and in the can. I was saying, ‘You’re joking. You can’t keep that in. You can see it falling apart on screen’. When Michael left, I wrote on his card, ‘A sausage sandwich will never be the same again’.

Sunetra Sarker

He’s lovely. He’s got a really nice attitude he’s very professional about his work but he’s also a real joker! He likes to have a laugh and it’s always good to have a very good friend off screen and on screen. It’s been very easy to work with him to be honest. I forgot how long he’s been in the show now it must be nearly a year in may and he’s really slotted into our team well.

Charlotte Salt

It is lovely being with Michael again, we always used to get on. He is very caring and cares a great deal about the show. This is his life, he loves Dr Jordan he loves all the characters that come into this world. He’s very giving and because we’ve got that history he’s always coming over to see how I’m doing. He also has this insanely amazing memory to randomly pick things out that happened in Born and Bred 10 years ago.

Oliver Kent

Michael French is a truly, truly amazing actor and we’re incredibly luck to have him. He’s just so clever on screen.

Oliver Coleman

In real life, Michael French is nothing like his character, Nick. He was very kind to me when I first started and helped calm me down when I was nervous. He also has a wicked sense of humour.

Anita Dobson

I didn’t work with him in EastEnders I’d left before he started- but we had lots to chat about. He’s such a laugh, delightful and fun. It was a shame it was a short stint really.

Sarah Preston

I loved my scenes with Michael, he was great to work with. Confrontation scenes give you something to get your teeth into and we had plenty of those.

Polly Thompson

He’s nice. He sings to us – songs from Gypsy,

I remember one time it was snowing, Michael and I were ill an awful lot and we had to re-do a scene because apart from the fact that we were shaking, we had smoke coming out of our mouth!I could see as Michael was talking to me, that the snow was starting to harden on his eyebrows! Needles to say I started to giggle and we had to stop it. There’s one brilliant out-take of us running down the road and then him falling over and me falling on top of him! It was the ice it was so cold.

Sue Johnston

Michael and I watched that Eastenders episode (his 1996 exit) together in a trailer on location. I think he was tremendous. There’s always so much going on behind his eyes. Being a huge soap fan, I found it such a strange experience. I was thinking about Cindy and Carol and Bianca, the women characters who would miss him so much, and pinching myself that he was actually there with me!
He’s great company, too. We went to the theatre to see Guys And Dolls the other week and we can’t stop singing the songs together.

Sue Johnston

I met him before at Pam St Clements This is your life, but we’ve become great friends since we started this. There are many women who would kill to be where I am. We get on so well and have far too many laughs.

We got on really well and still keep in touch. Michael and I has a hard time getting through the scenes without peeing ourselves laughing. It was the best fun I’ve had in ages. He made a sort of ten-minute film of the making of Gentleman Thief, which was so funny. He used this superb little broadcast-quality camera to film everything, then he paid for it to be edited. It’s excellent. It gives you a great insight into the making of a drama such as this.