With sex education still failing to deliver the meaningful, accurate education students need, TV shows like Hollyoaks are having to plug the gap, acting as conduits for getting vital information across to young people. Kieron Richardson speaks to QX magazine about his character Ste’s recent HIV diagnosis and the response it’s had.

Hey Keiron, how’s married life treating you?

It’s funny because my relationship doesn’t feel any different apart from the fact we have a ring on our finger now. I think the only difference is that when I look at Carl now I think ‘oh my god, you’re mine, forever’. I see it like some kind of ownership!

And how was the wedding?

The day itself was magical and beautiful and everyone’s reaction and response to it has been positive. You’ve got so many people there and you want to make sure you say hello to everyone. It’s a shame it just goes so fast.

Did you set up everything up? Were you the control freak?

Yeah absolutely, I had an idea in my head about 18 months ago, where I was like I Know what I want, I want brides instead of bridesmaids and I want a catwalk and I want this and I want that, and it was just getting ridiculous by the end. But I did have complete control.

Is that indicative of your relationship as well?

Definitely. I always end up getting what I want!

Moving onto the Hollyoaks storyline, where your character Ste finds out he’s HIV positive, what’s the response been like so far?

I think the biggest response was the shock from people that were unaware of how easy it is to have a HIV test. I think people were putting it off because not too long ago you had to wait two weeks for the result. I can only imagine how long that two weeks takes. But now Hollyoaks has highlighted that you can go and have the test and get the result back in 60 seconds.

So instead of putting it off you can find out there and then and I think that was the biggest reaction we got, people saying, “I can’t believe how easy it is, thank you I went and had a test myself.”

What sort of preparation did you do?

I went and had a HIV test myself, just to put myself into that situation. Even though I’d not long had a test, during the 60 seconds before was I like ‘oh my god, even though I know I’ve only been with my husband this result could be anything. So it was interesting to put myself in that position.

Why not have a gay person on the television showing that it does happen?

Was there anything that shocked you when you were researching the topic?

I think probably just the ignorance – myself included – of the fact that whenever people in the past would mention HIV, I would automatically associate it with the 80s and the stigma around it and then thinking it’s a death sentence if you get it. It’s quite ignorant and I think lots of people would be quite open to say that.

But from doing research for the storyline and watching it back, I’ve learnt it doesn’t have to be like that anymore and you can live a happy life. It doesn’t have that stigma.

It’s obviously a very sensitive subject with regards to the potential stereotyping of HIV as a ‘gay disease’; how nervous were you about portraying it?

The word stereotype coming up quite a lot, but HIV has been on the rise in every community, not just the gay community. And Emmerdale has portrayed it with the character of Val Pollard, who is heterosexual, so why not do it for the gay community seeing as it’s on the rise there as well? Why not have a gay person on the television showing that it does happen? I’m not too sure why other TV shows have shied away form doing it in the past. I was quite shocked that in this day and age it hadn’t been portrayed in this way.

And with sex education in a rubbish state how important shows like Hollyoaks are providing something of an education which young people may miss out on without?

Absolutely, I’ve been quite open about the sex education in my old school. HIV wasn’t really handled as a subject or a topic to learn anything about it in school, which is why I was quite ignorant.

So the fact I left school about 12 years ago and it hasn’t really changed much, it’s massively important for a show like ours, which has a really young demographic, that we can really heighten ways that this does happen. This is how you can get tested, these are the prevention drugs – everything you wouldn’t normally get from sex education in schools, you’re able to get from watching TV. It’s great for us to be the ones to tell them but it’s a shame that it isn’t really happening too much in schools.