Lydia Hart

Lydia Hart
Lydia Kelly as Lydia Hart (2009)
Hollyoaks character
Portrayed by	Lydia Kelly
Duration	2009–10
First appearance	4 March 2009
Last appearance	1 January 2010
Introduced by	Bryan Kirkwood
Spin-off appearances	Hollyoaks Later (2009)
Classification	Former; regular
Profile
Occupation	Student
Home	Prison
Sisters Persephone Hart

Lydia Hart is a fictional character from the British Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks, a long-running serial drama about life in a fictional suburb of Chester. The character is no longer part of current storylines. She was played by actress Lydia Kelly between 2009 and 2010. Lydia was created by series producer Bryan Kirkwood as one of many characters introduced that year. She made her debut in the soap on 4 March 2009, and remained for ten months.

Lydia's storylines focus on homosexuality, obsessiveness and murder. The seemingly level-headed music lover and friend of Josh Ashworth, she is portrayed as opinionated, passionate young student who had a love of music and protecting her family, for example her young sister Persephone Hart who also appeared in the show for a period of three months. Lydia's relationship to the sexually confused Sarah Barnes was central to the character for seven months of the year culminating with her screen death in October 2009 after she was murdered by Lydia. Other storylines included her ongoing on-off relationship with ex-girlfriend Charlotte Lau and continued feuds with Archie and Zoe Carpenter. The characters departure was announced in December 2009, when the character was arrested for the attempted murder of Zoe at Sarah's graveside after stabbing her, resulting in her being charged for the murder of Sarah and the attempted murder of Zoe, with Lydia making her final appearance on 1 January 2010. The parachute stunt won a British Soap Award in 2010. The aftermath storyline has received mixed reviews from critics. Some have favoured Lydia's "bunny boiling" and others described it as a "drawn out and boring storyline."

In November 2008, during an episode of Hollyoaks spin-off Hollyoaks Later, Sarah Barnes (Loui Batley) and Zoe Carpenter (Zoë Lister) had a sexual encounter. Up to now both characters had previously been portrayed as heterosexual and this was the start of Sarah's on-going sexuality crisis. The character of Lydia Hart was created as the new love interest for the sexually confused already established character, Sarah. When the character first appeared on-screen she was revealed to have a younger sister, Persephone Hart (Elizabeth Hadley), who was attending the dance classes taught by Sarah. Little is known about the rest of Lydia's family, although the character did stay with her mother frequently off-screen. The character was also given links to Charlotte Lau (Amy Yamazaki) who arrived in Hollyoaks in June 2009. It was soon revealed that Lydia was Charlotte's ex-girlfriend.