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The clocks appeared to stop on Monday evening as Nick Pickard attended the Hollyoaks 30th anniversary celebration in Liverpool.
The teen soap has somehow survived three decades of brazen infidelities, far right radicalisation, predatory serial killers, baby swaps and gay conversion therapy since launching on Channel 4 in 1995.
And through it all, the show's longest serving cast-member looked like he hadn't aged a day while toasting the remarkable milestone at St. George's Hall.
As hapless Tony Hutchinson, actor Nick Pickard, 50, has been a Hollyoaks mainstay since making his first appearance in the fictional Cheshire village during its inaugural episode on 23 October 1995.
Joining Hollyoaks creator Phil Redmond and an array of cast-members at the Liverpool venue - among them his younger brother John - a fresh faced Pickard was on hand to celebrate the show's various achievements.
But if his looks were well preserved, so too was his suit, with the actor choosing to wear the same powder blue two-piece he previously wore at the Inside Soap Awards on September 29.
Pickard was accompanied by long-term girlfriend Sarah Corrin, with whom he shares a home in Liverpool, as he walked the red carpet shortly after arriving.
Better known for his exploits as Tony, the actor earned a wider fanbase in 2023 after travelling to Australia for the twenty third series of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!
Corrin later admitted she was inundated with messages from fans after Pickard inadvertantly became something of a sex symbol among viewers of the long-running show.
‘I’ve had people sending me stuff saying that Nick is a heartthrob. Which is a surprise, well, not a surprise to me because I think he’s gorgeous but he’s got a whole new following,’ she told Daily Mail.
‘This girl put up a poll on Instagram. One option was "I find Nick weirdly fit" and the majority had clicked that.
‘I commented that I agreed but said “less of the weird please."
‘Then she privately messaged me and must have seen my Instagram supporting him and said: “Oh, are you a fan?”
She added: 'It's nice people get to see the Nick part of him and not just Tony. But you haven't seen all of him yet. I've wanted him to do it for years.
'He's very competitive and a good team player so that's why I've always said, out of all the things he could do, I'm A Celebrity would be a good one for him.
'I'm really surprised I haven't seen him have a hunger tantrum.
'He is the most positive upbeat person you'll ever meet but don't mess with him and his food.
'When people are going off for the Trials he's like 'Don't worry if you don't get all the stars' but I know on the inside he's like inside, "You have to get all the stars."'
Hollyoaks co-star Ashley Taylor Dawson, who plays Darren Osborne in the soap, previously revealed how Pickard organises charity football matches and even 'washes the kit and puts on a spread' for his co-workers.
He told The Sun: 'Nick gets in contact with the charities, the amount of work he’s done over the years, we’ve raised millions and that’s all down to Nick and all the hard work he does, the organising, he goes beyond organising the games.
'He does the kits, gets the transport, sorts the hotels, does the lot and he does that off his own back, and that’s commendable.'
