Why - it's none other than the channel 4 soap Hollyoaks. But do the beautiful people spend all day in front of the mirror? David Christie received exclusive access behind the scenes to find out

“YOU here for extras work? Go down to Grange Hill and take a left,” says the man in the luminous yellow jacket. Before I have time to explain my intentions, he is distracted by a loud crackling instruction blurting from his walkie-talkie.

Directions you don’t hear every day, that’s for sure, but then it is not every day you get a sneaky peek into life behind the scenes of Hollyoaks.

Both Hollyoaks and Grange Hill are filmed in the same Liverpool studios – and indeed share the same corridors – but while the cameras have stopped rolling on Phil Redmond’s cult classic school creation, his more recent offering seems to be ticking the boxes Grange Hill no longer can.

“There is never an episode with complete doom and gloom right to the end,” explains a shattered Gerard McCarthy over a canteen coffee. Stifling a yawn, McCarthy, who plays in-your-face Belfast student Kris Fisher, adds: “There’s usually about three or four storylines playing and if there is something really tragic then there is some comedy or nakedness elsewhere. We tend to have a lot more escapism than other soaps and it is a bit more tongue-in-cheek and edgy.”

It’s 1pm and Kris has just finished for the day, having been at the studios since 6.45am that morning. The Hollyoaks working week is Monday to Friday, and the cast can be working from early morning until seven or eight at night.

“It is tough hours but if you call a spade a spade it isn’t the hardest job in the world,” jokes Gerard. “You just have to stand in the right place and get the lines right. It is great craic and everybody is great fun so it doesn’t feel like work.”

This week, they are filming episodes 2291-2295 of the soap, which are likely to be shown on Channel 4 in about five weeks’ time.

The canteen, which backs onto the Dog In The Pond pub, is packed with beautiful young people, most of them extras, scanning the room for a glimpse of a cast member.

But they’d do well to pick out from that crowd the shaggy blond locks of McCarthy, dressed casually in jeans and a plain top, with a brown leather satchel containing more lines to learn on the plane back to Northern Ireland (he’s nipping home for the weekend to see his mum).

“I tend not to get recognised as much as the other cast, and when I do people think I am Patrick Kielty. When I’m on screen I’m caked in make-up and wearing strange clothes with strange hair. It takes longer for them to get me through wardrobe and make-up than it does any other character as Kris is quite high maintenance. Whereas I just throw on the nearest thing and rock into work.”

Today he’s had a fairly uneventful few scenes to film, but yesterday was a different story, snogging the face off Jennifer Metcalfe – who plays the feisty Mercedes McQueen.

“How hard work is that?” he laughs. “There’s not really an awful lot you can do to prepare for a kissing scene but more often than not you tend to get a lot of things wrong which under normal circumstances you wouldn’t.”

Are there any unwritten rules to follow when engaging in on-screen kissing? “You have to have a piece of chewing gum but there is no rule saying tongues or no tongues. It sort of depends on who it is.”

There is more kissing on the go a few corridor-lengths away, but of a more emotional nature. At the end of a pile of clutter which includes bunk beds, cables, and roasting-hot lights, James Sutton (John Paul McQueen) is standing in his makeshift living room deep in discussion with the director, Tracey Rooney.

“So then you move together and kiss,” she says, in a matter-of-fact manner.

“What kind of a kiss is it?” asks James.

“It’s longer than a peck,” comes the reply.

“But shorter than a frenchie,” he checks.

James is shooting a scene with Jake Hendriks, who joined the Hollyoaks team in October, playing gay priest Kieron.

The scene will only make up about one minute and 50 seconds of an episode, but it takes almost two hours to film by the time you have a rehearsal, film from three different camera angles and take account of messed-up lines, unforgiving props and technical problems.

“And any time you get more than three artists together it is just mayhem,” jokes first assistant director Ross Knowles, whose job it is to relay instructions to the cast and crew while the director is watching the action on monitors up in the gallery.

In between filming, James is busy pulling faces and cracking jokes with the crew.

“It’s not been too bad doing this sort of scene,” he says. “It is just the nature of the job. The actual kiss doesn’t bother me, I am more concerned about what it looks like and where the camera is. But it’s awful listening to those slurping noises.

“But seriously, working on a soap is an awful lot of hard work. You have to be pretty disciplined but the people you work with really make the job.

“The crew are great and off-screen all the cast hang out together. The guys all feel like frauds hanging around with all these hot girls.”

As he chats, James pings a pair of red frilly knickers from the kitchen coffee table across the room. In any other kitchen said item would seem out of place, but not in the McQueen household.

“Every one of those girls is crazy in their own right – never mind when we are all together in character. I have a great working relationship with them all but it’s nothing like my own family, I’m the eldest of three, and my parents have some taste.”

As I glance round the room, noting the life-sized china dalmation and the garish shrine to Jesus, James may have a point.

Talking of religion, new boy Jake reveals he has faced something of a quandary since taking on the role of Father Kieron. He says: “My dad is an Irish Catholic so it was an awkward part to accept. And I still haven’t plucked up the courage to tell my nan.”

Jake, who says his girlfriend had kittens when he told her he was going to be in Hollyoaks, is just about managing to cope with the fame. “The first time someone recognised me was outside a chippy after I’d been to a football match with my pals. My pals were banging on the window and then I see these 20 scallies shouting abuse at me. They weren’t the nicest but other people have been really pleasant to me. But I am from London where everyone is a nobody so you can’t wander about feeling famous.”

Jake is really enjoying being part of the Hollyoaks “family”, and is desperate to film a scene with the show’s only original cast member, Nick Pickard, who has played Tony Hutchinson since the very first episode in 1995.

“You only ever get the scripts of the episodes you are in so you kind of dip in and out of what others are up to, then all of a sudden you are unburdening your heart to someone you’ve never spoken to before.”

Down in the village, which is actually miniscule and – according to one long-serving shivering extra – a real wind trap, the crew are shooting a scene through the Wash and Go launderette window.

Sporting an oversized crew member’s coat, Zoe Lister, who plays Zoe Carpenter, is practising her star jumps as she waits patiently to join the discussion between her onscreen lover Mike Barnes (played by Tony Hirst) and his onscreen daughter Sarah (Loui Batley).

The wind gets up, blowing props across the village, but the cheery crew carry on regardless.

“It’s nice to be doing the storyline with Tony, just to mix it up a bit,” beams Zoe, having finally knocked off for the weekend at 7pm. “It makes a change from just bumbling along as a student. Well, unless you have a crazy stalker boyfriend, I guess.”

Her slightly more mature current partner, 41-year-old Tony, admits the storyline has given his teenage kids, not to mention his wife, plenty of ammunition.

He says: “They just mock me mercilessly and they’ve great pity for Zoe. For me it’s obviously been really hard to film but I suppose you have to grin and bear it, dig deep and get naked. It’s amazing how many of those scenes we have to retake!

“I really like the storyline as it’s not predictable. I’ve had good storylines like a daughter getting pregnant and me and my wife splitting up and her going round the bend. You could say it has never been dull.

“I don’t really feel older. There is this notion that because you are a parent you are somehow an old fogey. Suddenly you stop living. But I know that isn’t the case.”

And what does his onscreen daughter make of all the shenanigans? Well, she has enough trouble with the wardrobe selection for her character Sarah.

“The clothes I have to wear are non-existent which isn’t good cause it is freezing at the moment.”

With that she and the rest of the crew disappear to guzzle champagne in exclusive clubs – or go to bed early, whichever takes their fancy.