Hollyoaks has appointed a new acting producer following Paul Marquess's eventful 12 months at the helm of the soap. Gareth Philips, a former script editor at the show, will take over from Paul, who axed a number of characters and brought in a string of new ones as part of his transformation of the Channel 4 show. Paul said: "When I agreed to give up my life for a year to run a soap again, I never thought it would fly by so quickly. It's now the right time to hand over Hollyoaks and I'm looking forward to new projects." Carolyn Reynolds, Hollyoaks' executive producer, said: "I'd like to thank Paul Marquess for all he has done for Hollyoaks in the last 12 months. It's been great working with him again and we look forward to embarking on new projects. We're also delighted to be working with Gareth Philips. He's a very talented storyteller and this is a very exciting appointment for Hollyoaks." Gareth said: "I have really enjoyed working in the script team at Hollyoaks and it will be a huge honour to take the reins of Channel 4's flagship youth drama. I am very excited about taking the show even further this year with more compelling and brave stories." The new boss will work alongside Carolyn and her co-executive producer Tony Wood, with whom he worked at Coronation Street. He will then take over the reins at Hollyoaks as Paul starts working on other Lime Pictures programmes. During his year at Hollyoaks, former Brookside boss Paul has introduced characters including Eva Strong (Sheree Murphy) and Brendan Brady (Emmett Scanlan). He has also overseen plots such as Jasmine's transgender struggle, India's murder and Ste's dark relationship with Brendan.
