Holy Hollyoaks! (Hollyoaks)

Member Name: kellylouj

Product:	Hollyoaks
Date:	02/03/09 (290 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Realistic storylines, great looking characters, educational

Disadvantages: Can people really look that good all the time?

After writing about Coronation Street it made me think about a Soap I have watched from the moment it hit our screens and only one soap can be honoured with that and that is Hollyoaks and I have now managed to get my husband sucked in as well!

Hollyoaks airs every weeknight at 6.30pm on Channel 4 and the following nights episode can be viewed over on E4 at 7pm.

*~*How it all began*~*

When I read that a new soap was going to hit Channel 4 and it was being filmed in and around Chester, as I only lived down the road I knew I would have to watch it and see how own heritage town was being presented.
It was launched onto our screens on the 23rd October 1995 and I still remember the first ever episodes as I was preparing to take my GCSE's at the time and always got to watch it after my maths tutor left.

The main characters at the time were Tony Hutchinson (played by Nick Pickard) who up until recently was the only original remaining cast member. Jeremy Edwards played Kurt Benson and it was his family that really set the cast for Hollyoaks with his cheeky brother Ollie Benson who later was involved in a dramatic scene.

Jambo was a great loveable character played by Will Mellor he was Kurts best friend and spent most of his time driving around in a 3 wheeled orange car dressed up as a mouse.....yes this was what Hollyoaks used to be like for all you under 18's this is what I was subjected to at the age of 16!!

Carol also hung around with Jambo and Kurt and was played by the lovely Natalie Cassidy of 2 pints of lager and a packet of crisps fame and Ruth Osborne played by Terri Dwyer who has now gone onto bigger and better things such as 30 minute makeover, the characters in my opinion although at the time seemed some of the worst actors out there they really made Hollyoaks a success they were pretty, sassy and ideal role models.

Phil Redmond who created Hollyoaks and was famous for Grange Hill and Brookside merged the two shows together to create Hollyoaks and it works offering real -life storylines suitable for teenagers through to adults.

Some of the first major storylines that were covered on Hollyoaks were teenage pregnancy when Cindy became pregnant with Holly and have recently returned to Hollyoaks where they have both grown up a lot.

Tony and Mandy Hutchinson had a major storyline when their daughter died of sudden infant death syndrome which was a difficult storyline for the characters to cover but was done very sensitivly and it was easy to sympathise with the characters and relate to the pain that the characters displayed.

Drug addiction is one of the more recent storylines that has been covered when Sasha became addicted through her boyfriend which then saw her sleep with her dealer to carry on with her addiction before it was discovered by her family and they helped her to ditch the drugs.

Hollyoaks has covered so many hot topics this review would be never ending the most recent storylines that have been covered are domestic abuse with Amy and her boyfriend Ste which was quite a difficult storyline to watch as although we never really saw what went on the lead up to the scenes were so dramatic you could easily interpret what had happened.

The storyline of Mercedes and her new husband Malachy and the reactions of their friends and family when they discover that he has HIV and he even went as far as to put Mercedes life at risk by continuing to have unprotected sex with her rather than admit that he had been tested positive. I am hoping that in covering this storyline that they have made people aware of the dangers of unprotective sex and the dangers that come from having unprotected sex.

Relationships are the main storyline for Hollyoaks and there is always some drama or another with the characters in one way or another at currently it seems to be the turn of Carmel and Calvin where a tangle of lies seems to tying them both down.

Like most soaps we have the family known as the McQueens they are the work shy, tax avoiding, stealing family of the show that always seem to show their more common side that sometimes has me cringeing! Myra is the mother of her brood of kids and to be fair has had a good few storylines to take in, her daughter Jackie was unable to conceive so we had the storyline where her sister Tina offered to be a surrogate mother but ended up wanting to keep baby max which was actually fathered by Mercedes ex husband Russ, Mercedes had a one night stand with Jackie's then partner Tony who became pregnant and subsequently decided her only option was abortion rather than admit to her sister she had betrayed her. John Paul turned out to be gay and upset almost the entire cast when he had an affair with Craig Dean and this blew two families apart.

Hollyoaks is a great soap and should be up there with Eastenders as it always covers realistic storylines and covers them sympathetically and realistally it is easy to relate to the characters and their feelings the only one thing that is totally unbelievable about Hollyoaks and that is that everyone looks so good!

Summary: One of the better soaps about