Hollyoaks picks up best soap title at Broadcast Awards 2020

Hollyoaks was recognised at the Broadcast Awards, winning the trophy for Best Soap or Continuing Drama.

“We are delighted to be recognised as Broadcast’s best soap, particularly in a year which saw Hollyoaks be the first continuing drama to tell a story about Far Right radicalisation.” – Executive producer Bryan Kirkwood

Submitted episodes featured a story about Far Right Radicalisation with judges calling the C4 flagship soap: “The soap most willing to take on challenging issues and do them justice, with clever character development”.

Hollyoaks, up against Coronation Street, Emmerdale, EastEnders, Casualty and Holby City in the same category came out victorious. Over the past year, the Lime Pictures produced serial has explored the issue of radicalisation into Far-Right Extremism, which saw the much-loved character, Ste Hay, played by Kieron Richardson, being targeted and groomed.

Hollyoaks worked with Prevent, the Home Office and group Exit UK during the storyline, which ran for over a year and was the first time that the subject had been explored in continuing drama.

“This long-running story was a team effort that required the collaboration of every department in Hollyoaks. It was meticulously researched, sensitively portrayed by the actors and delivered with outstanding production values.I’d like to thank the writers Jayshree Patel and Kevin Rundlefor writing the extraordinary episodes that led to this award”  -Executive producer Bryan Kirkwood

Broadcast award judges said Hollyoaks ‘Was widely lauded for tackling the trickiest of topics, including a flagship episode on far-right extremism, as it approaches its 25thanniversary.’ Adding: ‘As Hollyoaks moves into its quarter-century on air, the show can safely say it has become a master at capturing these key themes for the masses.’ 

Last year, Hollyoaks won Best Soap at the British Soap Awards, the Royal Television Society Awards and the Inside Soap Awards.

 “As writers, it was important for Kevin Rundle and I to present the story from Ste’s reality. Telling the story of how a loveable working class lad is drawn in toby the Far Right allowed us to explore wider issues such as groomingand the power of social media. The story also allowed us to show the impact of racism on families. It’s so important to be able to show the sheer complexity of people’s reaction to racism and understand that ethnic minorities are not one homogenous group who think the same and are the same.” – Writer Jayshree Patel

Hollyoaks is on Channel 4 every weekday at 6:30pm and on First Look E4 at 7pm