Until his early twenties, Himesh Patel worked two jobs. The first, requiring him to rise far earlier than his personal circadian rhythms desired, was a daily paper round – his parents own the village shop in Sawtry, the small Cambridgeshire village in which he grew up.

The second – no less tiring, since it involved a four-hour round-trip drive to Elstree Studios (“There’d be times when I had to stop at a service station for half an hour’s sleep”) – was, at least, a little better paid: starring in EastEnders.

For nine years, Patel, now 31, played Tamwar Masood, the son of the soap’s first Muslim family since the Eighties, who moved into Albert Square in 2007. For the first five years he appeared