EastEnders star Paul Nicholls has joined the cast of BBC One’s In the Club for the pregnancy drama’s second season.

Featuring “more secrets, heartbreak, comedy and pathos”, Season 2 has begun filming and will feature the return of all six couples from Season 1.

In the Club launched in August 2014 and is created by Kay Mellor (The Syndicate, Band of Gold, Fat Friends).

> Buy Season 1 on DVD on Amazon.

New characters in the new season will include Shelly (Gemma Dobson), a pregnant surrogate who has rented out her womb to gay partners Andrew (Andrew Buckley, Shameless) and Nathan (Paul Nicholls, The C Word).

Shelly thinks it’s the perfect way to make some easy money, but her mum Maxine (Sandra Huggett, Doctors) isn’t so sure… Can handing over your own flesh and blood ever be a simple business transaction? They are about to find out.

Writer Kay Mellor commented: “I was delighted by the response to series one of In the Club and even though we left on a compete high with viewers growing week by week, I felt bereft the series had finished, so it was wonderful when the BBC asked me to write and produce a second series.

“It was an absolute pleasure to visit all my characters again with their complicated lives; the shift in their relationships now they’ve become parents and the opportunity to explore how they’re dealing with life now – ten months on.”

She added: “It also enabled me to invent some new characters – cleaner Maxine and her daughter Shelly, who is carrying a baby for her mother’s bosses Nathan and Andrew.  With the surrogacy scenario I’m able to look at a very modern family structure and all the complications, fun and heartbreak that comes from that situation.

“Having a child changes everything: it was one of the most profound things that happened to me.  Birth is the ultimate creation but with it comes huge responsibilities and huge joy.”

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