Hollyoaks to provide big Mercedes update amid cancer ordeal

Hollyoaks spoilers follow.

Hollyoaks will provide a big update on the health of Mercedes McQueen after it was revealed that she has been diagnosed with bowel cancer.

The Channel 4 soap entered a new era as it moved to three episodes per week, with the various storylines jumping a year into the future as new developments became known.

One of the new storylines saw Mercedes - who was left reeling following the departure of her love interest, Warren Fox - in the midst of her chemotherapy treatment for bowel cancer, which had been diagnosed in the intervening months.

mercedes mcqueen, hollyoaks
Lime Pictures

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The treatment also saw Mercedes fitted with a stoma and colostomy bag, with the character set to find out from hospital staff that she has a secondary tumour. This will lead into next week’s scenes, where Mercedes is initially optimistic about her test results.

In concurrent scenes, half-brother John Paul will tell Jez - who he is now in a relationship with - how much she means to him, with Mercedes listening in on the conversation as she turns the speaker on.

She then also gets some reassurance from Misbah, who tells her that she will never give up when it comes to getting Mercedes the necessary treatment.

The emotional storyline was recently explained by Jennifer Metcalfe, with the actor - who debuted as Mercedes in 2006 - sharing that she was honoured to lead the important arc.

jennifer metcalfe as mercedes mcqueen, hollyoaks
Ean Flanders - Lime Pictures

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“Over the years, and it has been nearly 20 years now, you get to do all these storylines that are really exciting,” she began. “But after 20 years, it can feel repetitive. But when Hannah [Cheers, executive producer] said that, I was just speechless.

“I was like: ‘Thank you for trusting me with such a storyline, I’m really excited about it, but I just don’t know how I’m going to do this’. But I trusted that when the scripts came through, because they’re always incredible, they were going to help – and they absolutely did.”

Hollyoaks airs on Mondays-Wednesdays with its Channel 4 streaming premiere at 7am, then an E4 broadcast the same night at 7pm. Full episodes are also released on YouTube a week after their Channel 4 release.

Selected omnibus episodes are available via Prime Video.

Read more Hollyoaks spoilers on our dedicated homepage


Hollyoaks has worked with Bowel Cancer UK on Mercedes' story. Further information is also available via the NHS website, Macmillan Cancer Support or Cancer Research UK.

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