Hollyoaks has been bringing back Brookside characters for its 30th anniversary last year and beyond, bringing the worlds of the two Channel 4 soaps together. It's been a treat for fans, but one former Brookie star has some things to say about what the writers have done with one of the characters.
Jennifer Ellison played Emily Shadwick in Brookside between 1998 and 2002, and before the character was killed off, she was in a relationship with Philip Olivier's Tinhead.
However, as recent Hollyoaks episodes showed, Tinhead has since got together with Emily's sister Nikki, played once again by Suzanne Collins.
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Speaking to the Liverpool Echo at the gala night for the tour of Moulin Rogue!, Ellison said, with a laugh, that she: "Turned on the telly the other day and he's with me sister, I was like, 'What's going on?!?'"
She jokingly agreed with the interviewer that Tinhead had been "unfaithful" to Emily (despite being dead for over 20 years) and added: "And me sister's even worse!"
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She also joked that she was "fuming" on behalf of Emily seeing Tinhead's actor Olivier get married in-real life recently, and stated that she was "still recovering" from the celebrations.
The big day, which saw Olivier marry his long-term partner Amy Virtue, was a bit of a Brookie reunion, with Louis Emerick, Leon Lopez and Paul Byatt also in attendance, while Emmerdale and Waterloo Road actor Adam Thomas was also there.
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Ellison has recently been popping up on screen in the comedy G'Wed, her first TV role in a while. She said her absence had partly been due to raising a family, but also due to the difficulties of the industries.
"I stepped away for a bit to raise my children, I was being offered roles that would've taken me away from them when they were babies and I didn't want that," she said.
"It's a tough industry. I've done a few auditions in the last few years, and every time I've got down to the last two, at the last minute it's gone the other way. It got to the point where I thought: 'This just isn't for me anymore.'
"I was so close to calling it a day. I just didn't know if I could put myself through it anymore. It's such a hard business."
Hollyoaks airs on Mondays-Wednesdays with its Channel 4 streaming premiere at 7am, then an E4 broadcast the same night at 7pm. Full episodes are also released on YouTube a week after their Channel 4 release.
Selected omnibus episodes are available via Prime Video.
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