Hollyoaks star Tamara Wall has expressed her excitement over the upcoming changes to the Channel 4 soap.

The actress, who recently returned to her role as Grace Black after being axed last year, remains optimistic despite the “emotional time” behind the scenes. It’s been confirmed that Hollyoaks will experience a one-year time jump in its autumn stunt week, a change made to accommodate job cuts resulting from the show’s reduction from five episodes per week to three starting this September.

Speaking to the Daily Star about the significant shift, Tamara said: “I think it’s really exciting. It’s obviously been an emotional time because a lot of people aren’t going to be staying, and I know how that feels and it’s awful, but it’s going to be really exciting to have a smaller cast to work with so you can keep up with the stories a bit better.”

She added: “When there’s loads of cast it’s kind of difficult to focus on certain characters so it will be nice to get long storylines and longer scenes so I think it’s going to be great.” When the news first broke about Hollyoaks’ schedule reduction, filming was temporarily halted to allow the cast time to process the news.

The actress has recently retuned to the Channel 4 soap as Grace Black after getting axed last year (
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In an official statement, Hannah Cheers confirmed the “lost year” storyline will involve saying “goodbye to some much-loved Hollyoaks villagers – and some earlier than we would have expected to.” The producer revealed: “When we started talking about the move to three

episodes a week, we realised we needed a mechanism through which to transition our stories and characters and we kept coming back to this one,” adding, “It’s bold, daring and is a first for a UK soap; it sums Hollyoaks up perfectly.”

“The new three-episode pattern offers us a different model of storytelling, which means we’ll see characters on screen for much longer. Our viewers are really smart; in order to serve them well, we need to kick off this new structure in a meaningful way. Fast-forwarding the show

permanently by a year presents us with unlimited story possibilities. We are now a streaming-first soap and can lean into less-restricting and conventional structures.”

On the topic of cast changes, Hannah stated that “reducing the team in size is a tough consequence of this transition”. She explained, “It’s not kind to our characters or our audience to have a drawn-out stream of goodbyes on screen, and a heightened stunt didn’t feel like the right approach,” and noted, “We also want the flexibility to see favourite characters again and we got really excited about how this would work.”

“We believe this creative approach will celebrate the uniqueness of Hollyoaks and will serve and honour our amazing characters throwing us forward into exciting new territory as we pave the way to our 30th anniversary in 2025.”