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"Hollyoaks Producer Bryan Kirkwood assumed office at the Chester-based soap over two years ago and since joining, his work has resulted in ever-growing critical acclaim. Fresh from his success at this year&amp;#039;s British Soap Awards, Digital Spy caught up with Bryan to chat about what&amp;#039;s to come for the show&amp;#039;s returnees Max and Steph over the coming months, John Paul and Kieron&amp;#039;s affair and more. You must be thrilled about your recent success at the British Soap Awards. &amp;quot;I think Hollyoaks&amp;#039; delight at winning six awards was fairly evident on the night. It&amp;#039;s been a long time coming - the show&amp;#039;s grown in popularity and critical acclaim for the last couple of years but we were still falling short at awards. But to finally be the show that wins more [British Soap] awards than any other including coveted viewer vote awards like best actor and best actress, it feels like the public perception of the show has changed at last.&amp;quot; What do you put the ongoing success of the show down to? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s like any show. It&amp;#039;s storylines, performances, engaging characters and good writing. It&amp;#039;s a fairly simple equation and the actors that we&amp;#039;ve got at the moment make up the strongest cast Hollyoaks has ever had. The characters are interesting and challenging - people like Mercedes [McQueen], Kris [Fisher] and Rhys [Ashworth], for example - these are people who you don&amp;#039;t necessarily want to have a drink with, but hopefully you&amp;#039;re entertained by them.&amp;quot; You&amp;#039;ve got a few returnees over the next couple of months, haven&amp;#039;t you? &amp;quot;Yeah, we&amp;#039;ve got Cindy Cunningham returning with her daughter Hollie and Mandy Richardson coming back with her new-born daughter Ella. I thought it was an important time to bring in some old faces. We&amp;#039;ve lost quite a lot of our more recognisable, long-term faces over the last year or so, and I thought it was an opportune time to bring back some faces from the past. It&amp;#039;s nice to acknowledge how important the past has been as well.&amp;quot; Are they back for a long stint? &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re both on six month contracts, so we&amp;#039;ll see what fun and games we can have with them and take it from there.&amp;quot; What&amp;#039;s next for your characters in the coming months? Max / Steph &amp;quot;One of the biggest storylines we&amp;#039;ve got coming up is Max and Steph&amp;#039;s wedding. It&amp;#039;s the union of two of our most-loved and longest-serving characters and it&amp;#039;s a relationship that taken a lot of people by surprise in in the way it&amp;#039;s worked so well. It&amp;#039;s seen a bit of a transformation in Steph over the last year - from a selfish wannabe to someone who&amp;#039;s struggling to grow up. Her struggle to accept the role of mother to little Tom has been particularly endearing, too. There&amp;#039;ll be a few will-they, won&amp;#039;t-they battles leading up to their big day, not least O.B&amp;#039;s return to tempt Max to run away to New York with him for one final adventure. I don&amp;#039;t want to give away how Max departs from the show, but the wedding episodes and the aftermath are some of the strongest material we&amp;#039;ve done.&amp;quot; John Paul / Kieron / Niall &amp;quot;The summer months see Niall become more and more embroiled in the McQueen clan. He&amp;#039;s living with Kieron while John Paul and Kieron&amp;#039;s relationship take a turn for the serious. It&amp;#039;s the new-found closeness with John Paul that leads Niall to turn his wrathful intentions onto his secret brother. Niall has a hand in Myra - and the community - discovering that John Paul&amp;#039;s been having an affair with the local priest. The repercussions of that are set to continue right until the autumn - and there are shocking and dramatic consequences all around, especially when John Paul is forced to make a choice between his future and his past.&amp;quot; Sasha / Fletch &amp;quot;Sasha and Fletch&amp;#039;s story has been an important one for Hollyoaks to tackle and we&amp;#039;ve taken two of the sweetest kids in the programme and shown the horrors of heroin addiction and how it can ravage two young lives. It&amp;#039;s not a &amp;#039;preachy&amp;#039; story, though, and it remains one of our big stories over the coming months. We&amp;#039;ll see the lengths that Sasha will goes to in order to fund her drug habit. It shows the Valentine family coming together in a way we&amp;#039;ve never seen before and the ripple effect leads to some members of the family behaving in a way we&amp;#039;ve never seen before.&amp;quot; Justin &amp;quot;Justin&amp;#039;s disappeared from view over the past couple of months due to his taking part in the Dancing On Ice tour and we&amp;#039;re absolutely delighted with Chris&amp;#039;s success. He&amp;#039;s really helped raise the profile of the show - we&amp;#039;ve definitely got a real star on our hands. He&amp;#039;s contracted for at least another year and we&amp;#039;ll see Justin&amp;#039;s determination to make a success of his life following the last few years of disaster and viewers will see him embark on an epic new romance.&amp;quot; Warren / Louise &amp;quot;Warren and Louise&amp;#039;s situation is one of the most exciting for me right now. She&amp;#039;s condoned the fact that he killed her husband and that makes for a really rotten secret at the heart of this couple. They both have dirt on each other, but the secret is eating away at both of them. What once was a strong relationship turns nasty with a surprising affair on the cards for one of them.&amp;quot; Are there any plans for Hollyoaks to start filming in HD? &amp;quot;We are already filming in HD and the show will be broadcast in the format from episode 2311 from Monday, June 2.&amp;quot; &amp;gt; Click here to read more about what&amp;#039;s to come for the residents of Hollyoaks in Soap Scoop "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/hollyoaks/interviews/a96114/bryan-kirkwood-producer-hollyoaks/>