Bad Girl’s Claire King heads into Hollyoaks

Claire King is to play her second on-screen prison governor when she is seen in Channel 4 teen soap Hollyoaks from next week.

The small part is described as a cameo performance and isn’t expected to lead to a longer stint on the long running saga.

King first played jail boss Karen Betts from the second to fifth series of ITV prison saga Bad Girls just over a decade ago but found national notoriety as scheming ‘super bitch’ Kim Tate in Emmerdale for a decade from 1989 onwards. In 2006 King played gangster Stella in the little remembered late-night Hollyoaks spin-off In The City which also starred Philip Olivier, Georgina Walker, Effie Woods and Lee Warburton. Hollyoaks: In The City also starred  Gemma Atkinson and Marcus Patric reprising their roles of Lisa Hunter and Ben Davies from the Channel Four soap opera.

Her role in Hollyoaks comes about after the character of Mitzeee is sentence to a jail term after wrongly being found guilty of stabbing tarty character Mercedes. The latter had stabbed herself to frame the former, in true soap opera style.

King has praised her co-stars at Lime Pictures, producers of the soap for Channel 4, saying it was “fantastic” to work with the cast. She also said it had been “great” to return to her “soap roots.”

King’s scenes can be seen on Channel 4 at 6.30pm on Thursday August 9^th. A preview of the episode can be seen the night before on E4 at 7pm.