The forgotten Noughties soap with huge Emmerdale, EastEnders and Hollyoaks stars – but can you remember it?

The Sun

27-04-2025

A FORGOTTEN Noughties soap drama had huge Emmerdale, EastEnders and Hollyoaks stars - but can you remember it?
The show first broadcast on ITV in 2001 and ran until 2003 with an enormous amount of trailers promoting the new series.
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Set in Greenwich, it focused on the lives of six very different families, including a missing 16-year-old girl, who appeared in flashback and fantasy sequences.
Do you know it yet?
The soap began on the sixteenth birthday of best friends Jane Harper and Della Wells, who lived in the same street in Greenwich.
However, before the day was over, Jane had disappeared.
Over the next year, the lives of six families in the street became further intertwined as a tangled web of secrets and lies threatened to boil to the surface,
And Jane's disappearance continued to have a devastating effect.
Did you guess it?
The soap was called Night and Day and featured a host of stars that went onto find fame in other soap dramas. Let's delve into a few.
Glynis Barber
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Glynis played Fiona Brake and was close to the children of the street given her nature as their school teacher.
But fans of Holly Oaks will know her as Norma Crow (also known as The Undertaker) who was a gangland boss, whose organisation had been active in Hollyoaks since at least 2020.
After her son, Warren Ross began suffering from liver failure, Norma offered herself as a donor, unaware that Warren planned to kill her in revenge for his childhood trauma following the transplant.
However, he changed his mind after they bonded together.
The pair continued to fall out and reconcile as Norma attempted to make amends for the 40-odd years of Warren's life she missed out on.
Kevin Sacre
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Kevin played Roxanne's eldest son Dennis Doyle who never fully trusted his stepdad, Alex, and was discovering adulthood.
He was a loser in love after being rejected by bitchy Jane Harper and catty Kate Ellis.
He went onto play the notorious Jake Dean in Hollyoaks who after finding out about his wife's affair - was taken down a darker path and his personality became erratic and controlling to those around him.
Jake then developed drinking problems as well as becoming more aggressive and even caused the death of another due to his actions.
Jake then had a breakdown and was sectioned but he returned in 2009 on a redemption path but that didn't end well either.
Sally Dexter
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Sally played a GP called Dr Natalie Harper who was Jane's mother.
Despite being very highly-strung and quite secure, Natalie's initial ability to deal with her daughter's disappearance masked her true crumbling nature.
However, viewers might know her much better as Faith Dingle in Emmerdale who was the ex-wife of Shadrach Dingle and the mother of Cain Dingle, Caleb Miligan and Chas Dingle.
Faith left the Dales forever when she died of cancer in Cain's arms.
Stuart Manning
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Stuart played the role of Sam Armstrong; an up-and-coming soccer player.
Sam was Jane's first boyfriend, and the father of her unborn baby, although he wasn't aware of it at the time.
Sam's life, however, changed when his parents were killed and he took in his sister Lucy, brother Ben, and had to deal with the sudden involvement in his life of his Aunt Rachel.
Stuart went on to the play Russ Owen in Hollyoaks and first appeared in 2004 with the Owen family.
Russ has been involved in storylines including being diagnosed with testicular cancer and kidnapping his son Max McQueen (Gabriel Lawrence).
Russ returned to the soap in 2018 and was killed off after being murdered by Breda McQueen.
Lysette Anthony
Lysette played Roxanne Doyle who was Natalie's best friend, and Della's mother.
She was pregnant and prone to irrational outbursts.
Another HollyOaks cast member - Lysette went on to play Marnie Nightingale who was the ex-wife of Mac Nightingale and the mother of James, Nathan and Ellie Nightingale.
Marnie hired her grandchildren, Juliet and Romeo, to work at her pâtisserie but the building exploded during the "Dee Valley Heroes" event.
The disaster claimed her life shortly afterwards.
Shane Richie
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Shane played the villainous Danny Dexter who was Dennis's father, who may have been involved in Jane's disappearance.
Shane went on to play roles in Dr Who and Benidorm as well as starring in Flushed Away but he is best known for his EastEnders role.
He plays the loveable Alfie Moon who made his first appearance in 2002 and has been a recurring character ever since.
Some of his character's more prominent storylines have included his turbulent relationship with Kat Slater (Jessie Wallace) and the dementia and death of his grandmother Nana Moon (Hilda Braid).
He also believed that Kat's son Tommy Moon had died of cot death, unaware that their neighbour Ronnie Mitchell (Samantha Womack) had switched him with her own deceased child.
Currently Alfie has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and is supporting Kat with Tommy's parental abuse.
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