DRW50

Hollyoaks is "desperately seeking" a new actress.

Hollyoaks production house Lime Pictures hope to discover the show's next Roxanne McKee (Louise Summers) as they invite female viewers aged 18-30 to send in audition clips in the hope of being cast as the programme's new 18 or 19-year-old student character, India.

Series producer Lucy Allan said of the project: "We are very excited about opening the audition process to a wider audience and hope to find that special raw talent that we found in Roxanne and Marcus in the 'On The Pull' series."

Former Hollyoaks star Roxanne McKee landed her role as Louise Summers after winning the 'On The Pull' competition in 2004.

Home & Away actors seem to be making publicity lately, but not in the best way.

One is involved in a cocaine scandal, and another made a sex tape he showed to some cast members.

I read about an interview the sex tape guy's mother had where she said she was so happy he wasn't involved with that type of girl now, and all I kept thinking was...OK...

I have a soft spot for Jacqui. She's a cow and she treats people horribly but she's very insecure underneath, she's a good person deep down. Like the way she was before she got pregnant and then learned she could not carry a child. She's been damaged since then, she lost her warm, caring side. I think Claire Cooper is a brilliant actress and I love watching her, so I put up with a lot from Jacqui I probably wouldn't from someone like Sasha, who can't act. I want Jacqui to finally get new stories, better stories.

How do you feel about the pub? I hear a lot of people say the Osbornes have to run the pub or it doesn't seem the same, but I think they had their day. Jack seems to barely be a part of the show now, and Frankie was always an interloper in the pub. I don't think the Ashworths are a good fit but I don't know who would be. Maybe Darren and Cindy, or Darren and Steph. Or Malachy and Mercedes.

Justin and Russ were both great characters poorly used over the past few years. At least they got good sendoffs. I do wish they'd had Russ leave to be with Dannii.

I think the other openings fit those soaps. I think HO's opening fits the current show but not the very dark show it was for most of last year.

Speaking of other soaps, the woman who played Steve Owen's sister Jackie on Eastenders 10 years ago will now be playing Zoe's and Archie's mother. Jackie's main story was having some type of female problem which caused her to become enraged and beat up her boyfriend, Gianni di Marco.

Kris' and Malachy's mother will be returning briefly for Kris' graduation.

The opening where Ste narrates. After seeing this I can't help wanting Ste to have a coming out story. He also looks so cute in his Il Gnosh uniform. Kieron Richardson makes Ste so interesting. I'm going to miss the friendship with Justin.

Justin has done many bad things over the years but at his best he was the young leading man the show needed and has never quite had without him. I think one of Kirkwood's few big mistakes was having him lie that Becca had groomed him and taken advantage of him when he was underage. This made Justin look terrible, especially when Becca was killed off, and it took years for Justin to come close to regaining his important status on the show. Both Justin and Russ were key characters to the show in 2004, 2005, 2006, and then they both sort of fell off the radar.

I hope Jacqui doesn't get the baby back. I want to see her move on from that baby, baby, baby, baby with her for years now. Do you remember Jacqui before she started obsessing over babies? She was funny, quirky, sexy, with traces of vulnerability and warmth. Since the baby stories started with her pregnancy and infertility, she's never been the same.

They're having budget problems. They can only afford to pay people for a limited amount of scenes now. This is what June Brown said.

The people who run EE now do not know how to tell stories. Why is Janine back? Someone said, "Janine's a great character," I guess, and this is why she's back. They have no idea what made her a great character and instead try to turn her into the same quasi-vixen with weird mouth movements that they turned Clare into. Then they have her run over Danielle, only to be upset for a few days, then suddenly get over it, even going into the pub of the family who lost Danielle, even going to their christening, and no one seems to care.

They also don't seem to know how to develop characters. What has Tanya been doing for the past year and a half? Stacey flounders around for an eternity until they give her the story they already gave her mother.

I wonder if this it for the Loft. I keep thinking they will refurbish. The Loft burned down once before, when Scott Anderson owned it. Darren left him inside the building, assuming he was killed (he wasn't).

I'm kind of tired of Jack and Frankie, especially Frankie, but I hope they give more stories to Darren and Steph, they're the only historical links left on Hollyoaks now, aside from Tony, and I guess Cindy, but all of Cindy's family is gone.

I could see her in a good guest spot on something like How I Met Your Mother.

I wish she could stick around. She seems to fit Hollyoaks, she's not quite on the wavelength of the other soaps. I think she's too vivacious for them.

I watched her on Dancing on Ice and she also seemed a bit too big for that show, viewers didn't seem to get her.

I haven't seen her Masterchef appearance. I wonder how well she did. I saw a clip of Mike and Zoe on there once (I wonder if Zoe and Sarah will ever get back together, or at least Zoe and Mike, they were both good couples).

I'm a bit surprised no one in America has tried to hire Gemma, I can see her as perfect casting about some American yokel who brings home a crazy British girlfriend.

Last interview with Jamie Lomas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc0otaOLPPc

Interview with Gemma:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu72lkaf1ro

I also wasn't a fan of 1795, although that wasn't because of Angelique, more because I just didn't find most of the characters captivating, and the whole thing was very depressing. I also get tired of Barnabas angst.

1897 has ups and downs, because they stretched the story out several more months than they originally planned for, but it has some great bits.

The werewolf/Quentin haunting story has some brilliant showpieces. My favorite is when they hire the woman to deal with the ghosts of Collinwood, and Quentin locks her in a room and slowly drives her to madness and death. Then she appears at the top of the stairs, already dead, and tumbles down. Chilling, and I still can't believe they got with that. This story is also a very strong period for Maggie. They made Maggie much more smart than she's given credit for. I just wish that yummy Joe had had a better exit. Joel Crothers deserved better. The show wasted him.

My favorite of the time travel periods was 1840, at least the first half, before Daphne and Quentin took center stage.

I think Warren was a great bad guy, a rogue who also had a softer side. I didn't like the relationship with Louise (I didn't think they had chemistry and they dragged each other down) and I thought the character suffered when they tried to make us feel sorry for him. I think that first year was Warren's best year. My favorite time was when he was sleeping with Clare while being best mates with Max, and when he was sleeping with Mercedes and first got involved with Justin. There was such amazing charisma with him at that time -- he looked like he wanted to make out with every other person he was in a scene with. I wish they'd done a bisexual story with him, I think he would have been perfect, especially since he was so much about his image. He would have gone crazy at the thought of having feelings for Justin, or Calvin.

Oddly enough, considering he's a former drug dealer and woman-beater, I like Ste. I think Kieron Richardson is a great actor and he's done wonders with a character who shouldn't have been redeemable. I think there are some other young characters on the show with potential but the show sometimes seems to have a hard time bringing new characters in or knowing what to do with them.

Hollyoaks has always had that wank material mentality, which Kirkwood did help clear up (even with the calendars still being around) but in earlier years the show won awards for some stories, like the one about Luke Morgan's rape.

I think Kirkwood was the main force behind the fantasy sequences in the opener, in the past they had them at times but they also had more traditional openings.

Jamie's sister is Charley Webb, who plays Debbie Dingle on Emmerdale. She's brilliant, one of the hearts of that show now.

The last interview with Jamie.

http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/a157274/ja...-interview.html

Russ actually had some good-ish stories for a few years. I never saw his storyline about testicular cancer, but his romance with Dannii, the destruction of their relationship as Russ' brother Sam and his friend became rapists, Sam blowing up the pub and killing himself as well as Russ' new girlfriend Sophie, Russ' relationship with Mercedes. I'm not sure why they stopped writing for him. He is, as you mention, gorgeous, and a good actor, and one of the few genuinely nice guys on the show. I don't know why they stopped writing for Russ and Justin, especially since they can't seem to stop writing for Calvin, who is so smug and self-righteous and not played by a very good actor.

There are many good actors on the show who don't get a lot of material (like Rhys).

I'm enjoying some of this week. I LOVE the cast integration, and Gemma Bissex is fantastic as ever, she plays the b&tch so well, she always plays her with vulnerability. I wish she could stay around. I'm even going to almost miss Warren, he's at his best with people like Clare and Justin. They shouldn't have moved him towards Louise and Sasha and Mandy.

The weird thing is these episodes were scheduled to air during the time of a huge football match in the UK, which means less people are likely to watch. I don't get that.

Here's a good article, although I should point out that Hollyoaks did have years of gripping stories before Kirkwood took over, it's just that the last few years before him were seen as poor.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/tvandrad...ks-new-producer

Thank you. I'm not sure if calling this "Stunt Week" is a great idea. I was hoping for more with Myra, but at least she'll still be around. I was also hoping they'd do more with Darren than him making more mistakes.

I wonder who Spencer will live with.

The episode aired Christmas Day of last year.

I thought Charity's exit was superb, she got her own back on the Kings, but she still lost Debbie. Debbie always seemed to prefer Cain. Then Charity left to try to finally live without a man. They even used Eva Cassidy's "Songbird" instead of the normal closing credits theme.

What makes this story so good is they have built on years and years of history. The story started in 2002 or 2003, when Debbie was fostered and then she reunited with her biological parents. Even when Cain and Charity were gone, Debbie continued to have story, becoming wealthy and hardened even though she was only in her late teens, then losing everything and reverting back to her more vulnerable self during her reconciliation with Jasmine. Just in time for Cain to return, and Debbie to be torn between doing what he wants and doing what her instincts tell her.

The story with little Sarah has also built consistently ever since 2005. I don't like Andy, but I think Kelvin Fletcher is a very good actor.

Interview with Gemma Bissix. Spoilers.

http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/a156248/ge...-hollyoaks.html

The rumors about Todd returning for a longer visit started after his well-received return in October 2007. The producer at the time left, and the new producer, Kim Crowther, doesn't seem to have any strong interest in the Grimshaw family, or gay characters (Sean is window dressing). I'll be surprised if Todd comes back. Happy, but surprised. Right now all the British soaps are at a low ebb in solid gay characters. Another problem is Corrie is having budget cuts, like all the other soaps, and Bruno probably comes with a good price tag. If they do bring him back I'd like to see him with Sean's ex, Marcus, who was adorable.

Ken eventually told Martha he was married. She was angry, but they couldn't stay away from each other, and she asked him to sail away with her. He planned to leave, and told Deirdre he was leaving. He left a note, and off he went...but he couldn't go through with it. He returned to the flat, and Deirdre, probably because she and Ken haven't had any actual love for each other in a long time (I would say never), took him back. Blanche was very angry at Deirdre's weakness and moved in with Peter and his little boy Simon.

Colin and Rita were engaged to be married. Then Julie's mother, Eileen's school friend, came to visit Julie. She finally broke down and told everyone in the pub that Colin had had sex with her when she was only about 14, and Julie was their child. Eileen bitterly turned against Julie, her mother, and Colin, and Rita broke up with Colin. Colin had a stroke. Julie, who never knew about him, tried to make a relationship with him, but her mother called the police to report Colin for what he'd done. When the cops showed up, Eileen went to the door. By the time she took them to his room, he had died of another stroke.

Complicating matters is that a few days before the big reveal, Julie and Eileen's son Jason almost had sex.

Thanks for all this info. I never knew Agnes came back to the show. I still wonder what could have been if they'd given the show a little more time, the cast and the stories were finally gelling.

Was Hannah the Rebecca Gayheart character?

Sad to hear about Roya Megnot.

Why do you think Doug Marland left the show? What part of the show was his influence? The Donovans? Did you miss them when they were phased out?

I just thought she'd want to even the score with Warren even more than Clare, since Warren wanted to kill her as well as his child (if he knew she was pregnant). Plus she went completely crazy.

I also wonder if they would have paid a visit to their old friend Mandy, and pay her back for the affair with Warren. Did you ever see the late night episode where they were supposed to go on holiday, then they ended up breaking down, they went to a trashy honky tonk bar, they broke into the wrong house and got arrested, then went to the right house and ran into Sean, the husband Louise had never mentioned. Someone was also hit in the head with a frying pan. This was with the first Clare, the one who was supposed to be nice.

This is an interesting article about the show, although it seems kind of out of date, and Kirkwood isn't entirely accurate (Justin was at the center of stories for years and years before Kirkwood showed up).

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_an...icle6260211.ece

What I never understood about Louise is why she had so many different personalities. She was Darren's holiday girl up for a good time, she was obsessed with Ben, she was the evil college supervisor, she was madly in love with the husband she'd never mentioned (Sean), then she was supposed to have feelings for Warren, then she fell for Calvin, on and on. I probably most liked her with Sean. Calvin was the worst, as he broke her spirit, as he does to all his love interests. Then she just became Warren's moll, and her story became about Warren's pain, which is just zzzzzz.

I think Roxanne was right not to return, although I would have loved seeing her team up with Clare to destroy Warren.

I wonder if this is the end of Spencer. I can't imagine who he would live with. He just seems to be taking up space.

Roxanne McKee has said she was originally asked to return, and said no. I guess that makes sense, but I still prefer Clare returning. I just hope Clare doesn't die.

Here's a promo for the big exit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qmz8L04_uug...feature=channel

Wouldn't be Warren/Justin without at least one shot where they look like they're going to make out.

I hope they don't rebuild the Loft, I think that place has had its day, and they can use the money to make other new sets. I don't even know who'd buy it anyway. Probably Neville Ashworth.

I lost some interest after the Becky/Steve wedding shambles, and all the time Michelle and Liz treated her like trash. Apparently Liz is gone for a while. I'm sorry Beverly Callard is having problems, but I don't care for Liz. I'd much rather see Steve's twin Andy return.

The Maria/Tony story is too plot-driven for me. Quite a bit of the show is plot-driven. I think they do best when focusing on characterization.

The work from everyone in the fallout of Colin's secrets being revealed was brilliant, especially Sue Cleaver (Eileen).

I thought 2008 was very uneven. I wouldn't say sucked, but some key stories (specifically, Niall's time in town, JP/Kieron, Craig's return and JP's exit) were very plot-driven and short-sighted. Kieron's death had barely any impact. Kieron could have served more use if he'd lived, especially since the show has struggled at bringing in solid new characters for the past few years. Craig and JP barely talked about their issues before they left, and it seemed more like reuniting them only because of what fans wanted, more than any passion from the writing. The McQueens only found out about Niall being Myra's son right before he died, and he became such a nutjob that the years of potential storylines to be spun about his place in the family were all squandered. Even Myra choosing which of her children should die had little payoff. This was all big moment after big moment with no real substance.

The custody battle over Charlie was inexplicably dropped and Nancy spent most of the year in a bad storyline with Ravi, while Justin barely appeared, aside from a going nowhere relationship with Leila.

Fletch and Sasha spent half a year getting addicted to heroin, then Fletch is suddenly written out, never to return, and Sasha starts vamping Warren.

Why did Hannah have so little to do during 2008?

A secret kept for almost a year about Mercedes sleeping with Tony and aborting his child -- used only for a short-lived vendetta story between Tony and Jacqui. They've wasted Jacqui for ages, it's always baby, baby, baby. Remember how fun and sexy she was early on, and her moments of vulnerability with her family?

A secret kept for almost a year about Tina carrying Russ' child -- barely tapped into before Tina was killed off.

Rhys -- barely a factor after Beth died, even though Andrew Moss proved he could carry major story. Sarah, flitting from point to point for most of the year. I still don't know what the point of the story with her and Elliott was, or Hannah and Elliott.

Why did they bring Mandy back just for the affair with Warren which did nothing for her character? Was that the only exit they could come up with to get rid of Louise?

Why did Carmel and Calvin become nothing more than this joyless couple with Calvin always judging her? Then they built up a story for Calvin and Valerie, but she left (for maternity leave, I guess) never to be mentioned again.

The pacing was horrible last year, and I thought the only consistently good and relatively well-paced stories involved Steph's struggles and the money problems with Jack and Darren. I liked other stories, like Mercedes, Malachy and the HIV, but they were short term.

Once the "big" stories ended, nothing was left, and most of the new characters brought in haven't picked up the slack. Kirkwood knew how to do big moments, but with nothing in between. Now people seem to have deserted the show because it was all short term stunt and long term emptiness.

I can't wait to see Clare again, but I hope she isn't going to be killed. I don't want this to be like that Mad May return on Eastenders, big hype and then a fizzle. It was her relationships with Louise, Max, and OB which fascinated me, not Justin or Warren, so I'd like to see her outlive them. What a great story if Clare outlives all her enemies (except OB).

The show is very directionless now, although I don't think this is because of Kirkwood's departure, the show has been aimless for quite some time (I'd say since late 2007). Directionless isn't always bad, as there can be some moments of strength. I think Anita's bullying story is very well done, from what I've seen, and the core families are still there if HO ever wants to focus on them.