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Emmerdale's John Middleton joins rival soap for 'evil' role

Emmerdale's John Middleton joins rival soap for 'evil' role

The actor, who played the lovely village vicar, Ashley Thomas, on the ITV show from 1996 until 2017, is set to appear on Hollyoaks as a mob boss.
He left the Yorkshire Dales after his character suffered a harrowing dementia storyline.
Before taking on his most famous role as Ashley, he originally appeared in Emmerdale as PC John Jarvis briefly.
Discussing the new role on Hollyoaks for the ITV actor, a source said: "People usually think of Ashley when they see John, but that won't be happening any more, Fraser is about as far away from the kindly vicar you can get."
Talking with The Sun, they added: "He's possibly the most evil character Hollyoaks has ever had - and for a village plagued by serial killers, that's saying something. Fraser will make his entrance very soon, and he's got more than one connection to the village with his twisted family already there.'
When he joins the Channel 4 programme in the near future, fans will quickly come to know him as the father of notorious villain, Fraser Black, played by Jesse Birdsall.
A post shared by Colin Boulter (@neilson_photo_actors)
This character terrorised residents on the show before being murdered in 2014.
A 'whodunnit' storyline, which went on for several months after his death, revealed that he was shot by his very own stepson, Freddie Roscoe (played by Charlie Clapham).
He is also the grandfather of shady Hollyoaks characters like Clare Devine, Grace Black and Rex Gallagher.
According to IMDb, the 71-year-old actor from Bradford has starred in a number of shows beyond Emmerdale.
From 1993 until 1995, he starred in four episodes of Coronation Street as John Hargreaves, the man who knocked down and killed Lisa Duckworth, and Mr. Mitchell, a hospital consultant.
He was also in two episodes of The Gambling Man and even appeared as Tony Warren in the 1998 TV movie The Things You Do for Love: Against the Odds.
In 2021, he appeared in the medical programme Doctors.
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