All Round To Jo's For Christmas

The popular actor is back on our screens with a thriller set in Australia - but for Christmas, home is where the heart is

- VICKI POWER

This Christmas, Jo Joyner won't just be celebrating with her immediate family - husband Neil Madden and their 12-year-old twins Edie and Freddie - but with her close mate Sunetra Sarker.

The pair met on the 2004-06 drama No Angels and from also co-starred in Channel 4's Ackley Bridge from 2017-21. Sunetra is also well known for her role in Casualty and her 2014 stint on Strictly Come Dancing.

It will be an unexpected but joyous reunion for the pair, which is happening because Sunetra is appearing at the Royal Shakespeare Company over Christmas and Jo lives nearby in rural Oxfordshire.

"I said to Sunetra, "I can't have you in a hotel when I know you're just up the road," explains Jo. "So she and her husband, Scott, and their kids will come to ours.

"Sunetra will be the quizmaster because she loves doing quizzes and games. Scott and I will do food and Neil will do fires and drinks. It'll be great."

One holiday activity Jo definitely won't be doing is watching herself on TV, even if she is starring in Channel 5's flagship drama of the Christmas season.

"I can't bear watching myself with other people in the room!" exclaims former EastEnder Jo.

She'll have to find a quiet moment to watch herself in Riptide, a four-part psychological thriller that took Jo to Australia last summer to film in a glamorous mansion opposite one-time Neighbours heart-throb Peter O'Brien (who played Shane Ramsay).