PDF - Daniel Moss

HE...
T
H
IT
W
Z
Z
A
R
E
H
T
N
O
�����
RICK Y
AKA CALVIN
������������������� KING
F DRIN
O
T
H
G
I
N
S
U
..
O
.
G
N
I
R
A GLORI
U
T
A
E
F
,
DEBAUCHERY
������
ASHLE Y
STUART
AKA DARREN
AKA ROSS
USERS! • SILVER PUNCH BOWLS!
O
R
T
T
I
L
• SP
STERIA! • RELEASING GOATS!
• GROUPIE HY
Words Dan Moss Photos Simon Lawson
Woman love ’em, so what bloke wouldn’t want
to be them? loaded joins the good fellas from
Hollyoaks for a big night on the Mersey tiles
A
group of girls wearing
skirts that leave little to
the imagination are
screaming at the
entrance to a club’s VIP
area. Two waiters saunter into the
room. One has six glasses and
a massive bottle of Cristal. The
other has 30 tequila slammers.
A camera flash lights up four
young men, sharply dressed in
designer suits, with movie star
good looks.
But this isn’t Hollywood; it’s a rainy, winter’s
night in Liverpool and loaded are out drinking
with the luckiest lads in Britain – the cast of
Hollyoaks.
Not only do
they get to work
alongside the
fittest actresses in
soap history,
but they’re also
worshipped by thousands of female fans and
treated like kings on Merseyside. And we’re
right there with them for one hell of a night.
Tonight we hit the town with Ricky Whittle,
Stuart Manning, Ashley Taylor Dawson and
Stephen Uppal, better known as Calvin, Russ,
Darren and Ravi. “You’re in for a messy night,
the ’oaks are always up for a party,” Ricky
warns us when we first meet up at the swanky
Malmaison hotel. The lads are starting the
night as they mean to go on, skipping the
STEPHEN
AKA RAVI
customary first course of beer and going
straight for the spirits. Three drinks in and the
boys are in banter mode, discussing the next
Hollyoaks girl their characters are getting off
with. Stuart then manages to rip a melon-sized
hole in the crotch of his trousers and their
anxious PR has ordered a bunch of pizzas to
try and stem the torrent of alcohol. We haven’t
even left the hotel bar yet.
So what is being a Hollyoaks boy like?
STUART: It’s all about having a laugh really
[says Stuart after doing a quick repair job on
his trousers]. At the end of the day we work
on Hollyoaks,, but it is a job. We’re still just lads
who like to have a good laugh and get pissed.
gina
“Like, nice man
de!”
du
e,
er
th
wn
do
WE’RE JUST LADS
WHO LIKE TO
HAVE A LAUGH
xxx
Is there a boys
drinking club
at Hollyoaks?
RICKY: Yes,
definitely.
My friends on
EastEnders and Corrie wish they had our sort
of banter. At the soap awards we’re always the
first to the bar, still there when the awards are
being given out and we’re there trying to get
another drink when the bar has closed.
STUART: Our football lot are the real drinking
guys, though.
RICKY: Yeah, that’s all organised by the
godfather of Hollyoaks, Nick Pickard, who
plays Tony. We play a lot of charity matches all
over the country and basically travel down on
ner ladle?”
“Is that a desig
r Moss
M
’s
d
asks loade
The Hollyoaks boys
plan to
put our car up on br
icks
was a definite high-p
oint
the Pizza
Meanwhile, in
nsington
Hut of central Ke
orge Best
Tonight, the Ge
goes to…
et
bl
go
l
ia
memor
nian (top)
The old Aberdo
ful from
st
fi
ht
rig
took a
the South
of
those Queens
�������������������
n about the
“So tell me agai
dmother?”
an
gr
ur
loss of yo
Moments later, Jez had an
all-night session of the full
1982 series of Mastermind
the Saturday, get wasted and then try to hold it
together for the match on Sunday.
ASHLEY: Nick arranges all the football, so he’s
supposed to be the one in control. Then we go
out and he’s running round the hotel naked,
rugby tackling trees in reception. Legend.
What’s the best beer trophy you’ve
ever stolen?
RICKY: I was playing American football at
Southampton Uni and we went to another uni
to play a match. Their mascot was stolen and
we denied it, but we’d set it free.
Who’s the biggest drinker then?
RICKY: I’m sure I could definitely drink
everyone under the table.
STUART: Oh behave. You go home when your
woman clicks her boots.
ASHLEY: I’ll tell you a tale about how big of
a drinker Ricky is. The first time I ever met him,
we were going abroad to do a calendar shoot.
Ricky went to the bar and came back with
quadruple vodkas. I thought, ‘Fair play, he’s
getting them down him.’ Then I looked at him
and said, “Hang on, can I have yours?” Ricky
was like, “No, just down yours.” I managed to
try a bit of his and he’d got himself water!
RICKY: After that we stayed up the whole
night drinking. The next morning we went to
get our flight, still completely pissed, and got
filmed by the TV show Airline. We were like
those rowdy people you usually see being
chucked off the plane for being too drunk.
I can’t believe they let us fly.
Where did you set him free?
STEPHEN: On the M6.
ASHLEY: In his mum’s bedroom.
RICKY: We put him
in a field with other
goats. So he probably
got battered for
not being related.
ASHLEY: That’s
definitely the best beer trophy ever, though.
xxx
getting papped. Everyone’s got camera phones
nowadays and it ends up on YouTube.
STUART: I don’t know how many times I’ve
been absolutely off my face in public and
nothing like that has ever happened.
Who’s the hardest member of the cast?
STUART: Stephen used to be a cage fighter,
so I’d say definitely him.
ASHLEY: Even if he is a big gay. Though
he is built like a
brick shithouse.
STEPHEN: I may play
a gay, but I could beat
the fuck out of you. Ha!
SHE HAD ‘CALVIN’
TATOOED ABOVE
HER FANNY
Do you have any initiations into the
Hollyoaks cast?
STUART: The initiation is to just come out and
get shitfaced.
STEPHEN: That was my initiation. Before that
I thought, “Yeah, I can drink a lot!” Can I fuck.
How messy are your cast parties then?
RICKY: Cast parties are just like normal nights
out, but it’s free and you ‘re not worried about
We move on to a regular Hollyoaks haunt,
the bar Alma De Cuba. As the cars roll up, the
boys emerge to a chorus of screams from the
queuing lady punters. The bouncers greet the
boys like old friends and we’re ushered inside
to a VIP area reserved for the Hollyoaks crew.
Other cast members have already beaten us
there – Claire Cooper (Jacqui McQueen) and
Ricky’s girlfriend, Carley Stenson (Steph Dean).
As soon as we sit down, sambuca shots
appear in front of us. Ricky leads the charge,
“Down in three. One, two, three!” They seem
ASHLEY WEARS: GREY SUIT £479 BY HUGO (020 7554 5700), SHIRT £88 BY CK CALVIN KLEIN @ WWW.ASOS.COM, TIE £8 BY BURTON
(0845 121 4514). STEPHEN WEARS JACKET £65, TROUSERS £25 AND WAISTCOAT £35 BOTH BY TOPMAN (0845 121 4519), SHOES
£185 BY TWEEN @ HARVEY NICHOLS (020 7235 5000), WHITE SHIRT £69 BY WWW.REISS.CO.UK. RIKKI WEARS SUIT £600 BY WWW.
HACKETT.COM, SHIRT £20 BY TOPMAN, SHOES £45 BY TOPMAN, TIE £59 BY PAUL SMITH (020 7379 7133). STUART WEARS GREY SUIT
£600 BY WWW.HACKETT.COM, SHIRT £20 BY TOPMAN, SHOES £50 BY BURTON, TIE £35 BY FRED PERRY (020 7632 2800).
r stopped
Being blind neve
some sorts
ng
lli
Tim from pu
to share loaded’s approach to life – a mix of
laughs, boozing and birds and before long,
some of the more attractive ladies in the bar
have started to hang around the lads. You
get the impression that these lads would be
popular with the fairer sex anyway, but being
in Hollyoaks surely can’t hurt their appeal?
So who gets the most girls?
RICKY: Stu does well.
ASHLEY: Stu’s a proper horn dog.
STUART: If you’re single, why not man?
What’s it like being able to pull any girl
you want every night?
STUART: That’s not true!
RICKY: Stu could pull a nice bird every night.
STUART: I can’t wait until this comes out.
“Stuart’s a wanker. He thinks he can pull every
night.” Please don’t put that.
Who gets the most attention from fans?
STUART: The fans love a bit of Ricky because
he always takes his top off.
RICKY: You do get some creepy fans, though.
A girl came up to me once in a queue for
a club and showed me her pubic region
– basically her fanny. She had ‘Calvin’ tattooed
above it. I wouldn’t mind, but that’s not even
my real name.
Do you have competitions to see who can
pull the most girls in a night?
ASHLEY: Yeah, but Stu wins every time. Ha ha!
STUART: For fuck’s sake man. You’re stitching
me up here!
RICKY: No we don’t do that. We believe in
sharing, ha ha! No, we don’t really!
Another bar, another VIP area; this time we’re
in the orange glow of the swanky Newz Bar
– a popular hangout in the city. Bottles are
scattered across the tables and the lads are
tucking in. We hit the dancefloor worse for
wear, but we’re soon surrounded by a swarm
of Scouse totty trying their luck. As the end of
the night nears we’re in familiar ‘boys’ night
out’ territory: Stephen is missing in action,
Ricky and Ashley have hooked up with their
girlfriends and Stuart has been accosted by a
young lady. “She’s just had ten grand’s worth
of work done and she wanted me to feel her
boobs,” Stuart laughs as he returns to the VIP
area. Nice work if you can get it!
Thanks to the Malmaison Hotel and the
Alma de Cuba bar on Seel St, Liverpool.