Kat Slater has made a dramatic return to EastEnders as she learned the residents of Walford think she is dead.

The soap favourite, played by Jessie Wallace, arrived in Albert Square for the first time since January 2016 in a black cab wheeling a suitcase in her signature leopard print.

Before getting out of the taxi, she applied a thick coat of her famous red lip gloss.

Finding a poster on the ground for a benefit night in her memory at the Queen Vic pub with the words “RIP Kat” on it, she expressed her shock saying: “What the…?”

Her arrival marked the cliffhanger at the end of the first of two episodes featuring the big comeback.

Wallace, 46, has played the role of the loudmouth, leopard print-wearing Kat on and off since 2000, before appearing in spin-off series Redwater.

Her reappearance comes as her old neighbours make plans for her funeral and celebrate her life with a fundraiser for the send-off, while dressed in leopard print outfits and cat ears, with lashings of fake tan.

Earlier in the episode Mo Slater (Laila Morse) admitted to Stacey Fowler (Lacey Turner) that Kat is not dead “technically speaking”.

The next episode will air at 9pm on BBC One.