Claire King returns to soap

Claire King returns to soap
Claire King returns to soap (Image credit: Suzan/EMPICS Entertainment)

Ex-Emmerdale star Claire King is making a return to soap with a cameo in Hollyoaks. The actress made her name playing soap villain Kim Tate in Emmerdale, leaving in 1999 after 10 years. Claire will play a prison governor in Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks - the same role she won critical acclaim for in hit ITV prison drama Bad Girls. She said: "It's great to go back to my soap roots and work with the talented team at Hollyoaks." Hollyoaks schemer Mitzeee Minniver has been wrongly jailed for stabbing Mercedes McQueen, played by Jennifer Metcalfe. Viewers are aware that Mitzeee has been framed by Mercedes, who stabbed herself and framed Mitzeee to ruin her blossoming romance with Mercedes' ex-fiance and father of her baby Riley Costello. Behind bars, things go from bad to worse for Mitzeee when Mercedes' mother Myra McQueen (Nicole Barber Lane) is transferred into her prison. Claire added: "Rachel and Nicole were fantastic to work with and I really enjoyed filming the dramatic prison scenes." Her character first appears to keep a close eye on things in scenes to be broadcast on E4 at 7pm next Wednesday, August 8, and repeated on Channel 4 at 6.30pm on Thursday August 9.

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.