'Hollyoaks' are to shoot special 'Love Actually'-style festive scenes where real people embrace, amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Hollyoaks

Hollyoaks

Despite the global health crisis leading to social distancing on TV sets up and down the country, the Channel 4 soap's bosses are said to be determined to show some tactile moments on screen this Christmas - similar to the conclusion of the 2003 romantic-comedy film - and have enlisted the help of real-life couples and people in the same bubble to hug and kiss one another.

A TV insider told The Sun newspaper's Bizarre TV column: "They want to create a cosy backdrop reflecting the fact normal life is still continuing for many."

'Hollyoaks' turns 25 on Friday (23.10.20), and to honour the milestone the soap is repeating the show's first-ever episode from 1995.

It will feature a youthful Nick Pickard - who still appears in the show as Tony Hutchinson - as well as Jeremy Edwards (Kurt Benson) and Will Mellor (Jambo).

And on Wednesday (21.10.20) on E4, 'Hollyoaks' fans will be in for a special treat as the show will air a birthday episode, which will see Kurt returning from the dead on his motorbike, after it was thought he had been killed in a jet ski accident in 1999.

The birthday week episodes will heavily feature the McQueen family, made up of Mercedes (Jennifer Metcalfe), Theresa (Jorgie Porter), Goldie (Chelsee Healey) and John Paul (James Sutton), as they are being blackmailed by a mystery tormentor via a macabre doll.

Tagged in