Hollyoaks is a British television soap opera that was first broadcast on 23 October 1995. The following is a list of characters that first appear in the show in 2021, by order of first appearance. All characters are introduced by the show's executive producer Bryan Kirkwood, or by his successor, Lucy Allan. (Tom Benedict Knight) made his debut in January as the boyfriend of Trish Minniver (Denise Welch). (Omar Malik), the step-cousin of Sami Maalik (Rishi Nair), made his first appearance in March, as well as (Robert Beck). AJ and Curtis Pritchard also made guest appearances as and , respectively. (Sam Tutty) debuted in June as somebody working for Fergus. July saw the arrival of (Katie McGlynn), a friend of Diane Hutchinson (Alex Fletcher). Cathy Shipton joined the cast in August as , the aunt of Luke Morgan (Gary Lucy). She was followed by (Raji James), the father of Shaq. After Allan's episodes began airing, she announced her plans to introduce numerous black characters to the series. These include , now (Chris Charles), (Emily Burnett), (Dawn Hope) and (Tomi Ade). In October, Natalie Anderson joined the soap as police detective and joined the soap as a love interest for Sid Sumner (Billy Price). In November, (Matthew James-Bailey) and his girlfriend (Ky Discala) debuted as part of a storyline where the pair kidnap Darren Osborne (Ashley Taylor Dawson). In December, Serena's family, the Chen-Williams, are introduced and became the first East Asian family in a soap opera. The family includes (Vera Chok) and her husband Dave (Dominic Power), as well as their children, (Matthew McGivern), (Lily Best) and (Frank Kauer). Additionally, multiple appear throughout the year.