Oooh! It’s all happening in Chester! Hollyoaks has once again cranked up the tension with the use of an incredibly long storyline that we all know the outcome of! That’s right! For all of you who have been watching it for the past… oh, I dunno, six months, you’ll know that Clare Cunningham is an evil witch (Burn her! Burn her!). She’s fleecing the ever so nice and lovely Max (her hubbie) for lots of pennies, poisoning Tom (the aaaw factor toddler), and purveyor of TVs greatest ‘afterlook’ (y’know, when someone hugs and it zooms in on their scowling face).

She’s toying with emotions, sleeping around, being a big time drug dealer, trying to run off to New Zealand, pretending that she wants a child and quite possibly, she’s the cause of World War 2. Yep, she’s more evil than Darth Vader and Beelzebub put together. Obviously this is all great fun to boo and hiss at, but there is one problem.

Clare Cunningham (nee Devine) has been evil for aaaaaaaaages. I could have put more ‘a’s’ in that ‘ages’ to really give you a sense of how long it’s been, but that would have been a bit boring to read… and I’m waffling. You see, it seems like this ‘Clare is Evil’ thing has been going on for years as opposed to the months that it’s been. Can you remember all that time ago when O.B. was trying to tell anyone who would listen how nasty she was? Anyway, with all these ‘afterlooks’ and actual poisoning going on, I can see an end coming to this storyline soon, possibly building up to a big Christmas bang. I imagine it’ll involve a death, a near death, most certainly a show down (possibly in public) and a punch being thrown Warren’s way.

Aside from all this Cunningham craziness, there is the story of Becca’s return. It would seem that Channel 4 have knocked the whole ‘paedophile’ story on the head, which in my opinion is very wise indeed. Not only do I think it was irresponsible, but it means that Britain’s Worst Actor (copyright Mof Gimmers 2006) Chris Fountain, who plays Justin, isn’t on our screens.

This time of year is always a bit funny. It’s the build up to the big Christmas ratings grabbers. Of course, we have the Evil Clare thing, but what else is there? Steph’s stardom goes horribly wrong? Becca actually gets sent down? They’ve just blown up the pub in Hollyoaks (a Phil Redmond trademark), so we can’t expect any explosions. So will our Hollyoaks Christmas revolve around Tony Hutchinson feeling sorry for that girl in prison? I doubt it. Looks like Max is going to get bumped off then, doesn’t it? [Mof Gimmers]