Welcome to a village that’s populated almost entirely by unfeasibly photogenic twenty-somethings. A place where everyone is tanned, with immaculately styled hair, despite the north west’s soggy, blustery weather. Where relationships move fast, but tend to end in disaster. And where the local pub, The Dog in the Pond, seems to blow up with concerning frequency. I’m talking, of course, about Hollyoaks, the unassuming (and, well, entirely made-up) Chester suburb that gives its name to Channel 4’s larger-than-life soap opera.
Soaps have never been famed for their low-key, kitchen sink-style realism. But Hollyoaks, which reaches the venerable age of 30 this week (probably making it a fair few years older than the majority of its regular viewers), has always pushed its “more is more” ethos to the very limit, then thrown in a few grisly accidents, ill-advised snogs and improbable resurrections for good measure.
