Returning to Brookside is the perfect way to honour Hollyoaks' heritage
The crossover is a tribute to both groundbreaking soaps.
Soaps love to mark a significant anniversary by going back in time. Returning characters and knowing nods to the past are a reward for loyal viewers, and a way of reminding us of the show’s roots and the reasons we’ve watched it for so long.
Hollyoaks is going bigger and shouting louder, as it does with most things, when it comes to the celebrations for its 30th birthday. In a gift to soap fans, Channel 4’s cheeky, rebellious flagship continuing drama is acknowledging the history of two shows – itself, and the programme it sprang from.
In an audacious soap crossover, months before ITV’s much-anticipated Corriedale weaves together the worlds of Weatherfield and the Yorkshire Dales, Hollyoaks is mashing up with Brookside. This goes right back to the origin story for Hollyoaks, launched in 1995 as a sister show to Brookside by Sir Phil Redmond, who created them both. Forget the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this is the Redmond shared soap universe.
It’s been 22 years since Channel 4’s iconic continuing drama was cancelled, leaving behind a legacy of breaking boundaries and highlighting the taboo topics other dramas, not just soaps, were too scared to touch.
Part of the epic storylines for Hollyoaks’ anniversary week takes detective Donny Clark to Brookside Close, the humble Liverpool cul-de-sac on an unassuming housing estate that was the scene of some of TV’s most groundbreaking drama. For reasons that will become clear when he interacts with some familiar Brookie faces, some of whom we haven’t seen on screen since the '80s, it turns out there’s a strong link between Donny and the Close. But the connections between Hollyoaks and Brookside run much deeper.
Brookie’s mini-return has generated a wave of nostalgia and confirmed the respectful position it holds in TV history as the first truly daring continuing drama, which Hollyoaks inherited and continues to keep alive.
Starting in 1995 as a shiny teen show about a gang of good-looking friends in their late teens from an ordinary, slightly aspirational suburb of Chester, Hollyoaks quickly showed it had substance as well as style and it wasn’t afraid to take risks. Pulling the rug from under the audience by killing off leading lady Natasha Andersen following a drug overdose just a few months in, it hit its stride as a place to tell hard-hitting stories to an adolescent demographic with a bold, brave spirit.
Famously the first soap to portray male sexual assault in a late-night post-watershed special, a format innovation that also influenced the genre, the list of issues highlighted by Hollyoaks over 30 years is incredible. In the last 12 months alone it's tackled sibling sexual abuse (another soap first), child exploitation, conversion therapy, child-to-parent domestic violence and transgender hate crimes.
Add those to previous pioneering storylines such as far-right radicalisation, self-harm, eating disorders and county lines grooming, among others, and you realise how seriously Hollyoaks takes its commitment to helping its audience navigate a complicated world at a complicated age.
It broke the mould, but it couldn’t have done any of it without Brookside. The turning point not just for soaps, but arguably all British TV drama, Brookside was revolutionary when it began in 1982, on Channel 4’s launch night.
Soaps had been a staple of the schedules since Coronation Street practically invented the genre in 1960 with its relatable depiction of working class life, but by the early '80s it had traded some of the early grittiness for whimsical cosiness. Crossroads was a cheap and cheerful melodrama, Emmerdale (back then) a slower-paced slice of village life, and US imports Dallas and Dynasty were pure high-octane escapism.
Brookside took the template of day-to-day struggles and relationships within a close-knit community and made it modern and relevant. It had a more realistic approach and a social conscience that put politics front and centre, examining the socio-economic impact of Thatcherism on families everybody could recognise.
It also raised awareness on issues such as sexual assault, mental health, violence, class, religion and provided an early platform the representation of LGBTQ+ characters. Nothing was off limits for Redmond’s fearless creation.
The death of Trevor Jordache at the hands of the wife and daughter he abused in 1993 was an unflinching portrayal of a harrowing subject, and became Brookside’s most famous, and prescient, storyline. Burying Trevor’s body under the patio, and leaving it undiscovered for two years, happened in an eerie parallel with a notorious case of real-life domestic abuse – in 1994, police discovered the victims of serial killers Fred and Rose West hidden in their family home, including their own daughter, who was buried in the back garden. The Jordache story was the ultimate Brookside plot: shocking, controversial and rooted in truth.
The year Trevor was dug up also saw Hollyoaks make its debut. Produced by the same team as Brookside at the same Liverpool-based studio complex, using shared sets still used today (did you know Dee Valley Hospital was once the night club on Brookside’s shopping parade?), Redmond always considered it to be a spin-off with a youthful skew. Seeing characters cross over between the two shows isn’t a new idea, it was happening right at the start, but over time the connection was lost, especially once Brookside was axed in 2003.
Reviving it as a narrative device to mark Hollyoaks’ impressive three-decade milestone makes perfect sense. What better way to recognise the simple fact Hollyoaks would not exist without Brookie by strengthening the original relationship between them, and having legends like Sheila Grant and Billy Corkhill along for the ride. And this is not just one-off fan service – Billy will follow Donny back to Hollyoaks village next week, meaning there’s scope for more back and forth in the future.
Having Brookside show up as a guest at its little sister’s metaphorical birthday party also recognises how Hollyoaks, while still having an eye on serving the younger end of the soap audience, has come of age as it hits the big three-oh. It’s bold, brash, sure of itself and ready to provoke difficult conversations. Just like Brookside was.
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Episodes of Brookside are available to watch on STV player. Hollyoaks is available to watch on catch-up on Channel 4.
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