Lydia Smith

Hollyoaks is a British television soap opera that was first broadcast on 23 October 1995. The following is a list of characters that first appear in the show in 2021, by order of first appearance. All characters are introduced by the show's executive producer Bryan Kirkwood, or by his successor, Lucy Allan. Brad King made his debut in January as the boyfriend of Trish Minniver. Shaq Qureshi, the step-cousin of Sami Maalik, made his first appearance in March, as well as Fergus Collins. AJ and Curtis Pritchard also made guest appearances as Marco and Jacob, respectively. Timmy Simons debuted in June as somebody working for Fergus. July saw the arrival of Becky Quentin, a friend of Diane Hutchinson. Cathy Shipton joined the cast in August as Lydia Smith, the aunt of Luke Morgan. She was followed by Ali Shahzad, the father of Shaq. After Allan's episodes began airing, she announced her plans to introduce numerous black characters to the series. These include Nate Denby, now Saul Reeves, Olivia Bradshaw, Pearl Anderson and DeMarcus Westwood. In October, Natalie Anderson joined the soap as police detective Lexi Calder and Serena Chen-Williams joined the soap as a love interest for Sid Sumner. In November, Ethan Williams and his girlfriend Maya Harkwell debuted as part of a storyline where the pair kidnap Darren Osborne. In December, Serena's family, the Chen-Williams, are introduced and became the first East Asian family in a soap opera. The family includes Honour and her husband Dave, as well as their children, Sam Chen-Williams, Lizzie Chen-Williams and Mason Chen-Williams. Additionally, multiple other characters appear throughout the year.