Laura Street continues our weekly Funny Women column, dreaming of a lazy Sunday with the channel 4 soap.
Whilst Gemma Merna who plays Carmel McQueen in channel 4 teen-soap Hollyoaks, isn't an official comedienne, I still believe she deserves to be this weeks funny woman.
Having recently received a soap award for Best Comedy Performance, Gemma Merna is quickly making a name for herself on UK television. Her first role was actually her current position on Hollyoaks as a member of the infamous McQueen family. She had previously appeared as an extra on Little Britain and, bizarrely, as a dancer for Alice Cooper in 2003.
I picked this clip from a recent episode of Hollyoaks for Carmel's part (1min 22 seconds in to the clip) when she is making lunch for her on-screen brother John-Paul (James Sutton).
In this scene, the McQueen family are coming to terms with John-Paul's sexuality which he has recently announced. Carmel has made her younger brother a homosexual sandwich with carrot flowers.
Hollyoaks tends to get a lot of abuse for its use of models instead of actors and slightly strange scripts. However, I always find myself defending it because of how light hearted and unserious it is. There is nothing I'd rather watch on a sunday morning when nursing a slightly sore head than Hollyoaks, and always find Merna's scenes to be very entertaining.
Laura Street is the editor of The Bag Lady and is particularly intrigued by a homosexual sandwich as the filling is never mentioned.