The British Soap Awards, ITV
★★★★
You had to feel a little sorry for the cast and crew of Hollyoaks on Saturday night.
Chester’s finest landed their most prestigious haul in years but they were overshadowed by that lot from across the Mersey painting Madrid red.
Not that the big three soaps will have minded that Champions League fever meant that less than three million viewers were watching these awards.
Hollyoaks scooping four main awards – including the coveted viewer-voted Best Soap prize – merely emphasised that the giants are not in the best of health these days.
Some at Emmerdale might reasonably argue that Lucy Pargeter should have added to her Best Actress award by winning the Best Onscreen Partnership for her work with Dominic Brunt.
Meanwhile EastEnders could point to the fact that youngster Kara-Leah Fernandes won a couple of awards.
But, they must also secretly be hoping that some casual viewers heard the name of Hollyoaks winner Adam Woodward and assumed it was Adam Woodyatt.
As for Corrie, Aidan’s suicide storyline may have been finally recognised with two awards.
But, that already feels like it happened a very long time ago.
While it was great to see the wonderful Sue Nicholls bag the award for Outstanding Achievement it’s a bit of a “past glories” gong.
Surely the biggest worry though was that having broken Corrie’s Best Comedy stranglehold in 2018 BBC1’s Doctors won it again this year.
How’s that “Corrie will provide our comedy instead of sitcoms” thing working out now, ITV?
