Reception
Stenson received several award nominations for her portrayal of Steph. She was nominated in the "Best Comedy Performance" category at the 2005 and 2006 British Soap Awards, and for "Best Dramatic Performance" in 2009. She received a long-list nomination for the "Best Actress" accolade at the 2005 National Television Awards. In 2008, Stenson was nominated for the "Sexiest Female" Inside Soap Award, which she found flattering. A further nomination in the same category followed in 2010, accompanied by nominations for "Best Actress", and "Best Dramatic Performance" for Steph learning she had cancer. The character was selected as one of the "top 100 British soap characters" by industry experts for a poll to be run by What's on TV, with readers able to vote for their favourite character to discover "Who is Soap's greatest Legend?"
Following her departure, her co-stars commented favourably on the actress and character, with Jorgie Porter deeming her an "ultimate original", Gemma Merna stating that she "was Hollyoaks", and Ricky Whittle admitting that he cried during the airing of her final scenes. Television and entertainment website Holy Soap did not see Steph's fire death coming, calling her actions brave and her ten-year duration "mammoth". They described her most memorable moment as telling Niall she did not love him and then watching him commit suicide. Inside Soap said if there was an award for "the unluckiest character in soap", Steph would certainly win. In his column for The Guardian, television critic Jim Shelley stated that it was time for Steph to go, having "suffered enough" during her tenure. Humorously recapping her ten years in Hollyoaks, Shelley wrote:
| “ | Steph lived a rich, not to say happy, life. She was a bully and wannabe Wag, before miraculously transforming herself into the show's tragic heroine, suffering cervical cancer, epilepsy and a hysterectomy. Her husband was run over on their wedding day. Steph later slept with his killer (long story). She also watched him in horror as he threw himself off a cliff. So, unlucky in love... She reported her brother for rape, was stalked by a serial killer and inherited a donkey. It's all on Wikipedia, and I don't think it's been tampered with. I mean, who the hell could make that up? | ” |
Sarah Welsh of the South Wales Echo gave the stalking storyline a negative review. She called both plot and acting "ridiculous" and commented that while she often felt sorry for the serial being snubbed at the National Soap Awards, "This is not the way to raise the game."
Steph's relationships were a focal point of many reviews. The Daily Mirror's Nicola Methven and Polly Hudson found a 2004 love triangle between Steph, her sister Debbie and love interest Dan Hunter (Andrew McNair) "surprising compelling". Grace Dent of The Guardian observed of her failed engagement to Fernando: "With the best will in the world, I don't feel that marriage was ever going to last". Dent had previously named Steph singing the Sugababes' "About You Now" at Max's funeral one of her four favourite soap moments of 2008. Roz Laws of the Sunday Mercury felt there was "plenty of chemistry" between Steph and Gilly. Their relationship was frequently commented on by the Daily Mail's Jaci Stephen in her weekly soap column. She expressed disinterest in Steph and Cheryl's rivalry over Gilly, and found it implausible that she and Jem would quarrel over him. When the two finally admitted their feelings for one another in May 2010, Stephen accurately predicted that their happiness would be short-lived. She highlighted a lack of subtlety in the scripting of the lead-up to their wedding, observing: "Of course, you know that the moment she says that nothing is going to stop her marrying Gilly, the Grim Reaper will be pulling up in his hearse, shortly behind the wedding car."
Stephen derided Steph's singing ambition during her X Factor plot line, deeming her voice "average" and writing that she did not need to use her cancer for the sympathy vote, as her singing alone would be enough for that. She later questioned when Steph would accept that she was not intended to be a singer, commenting that her "ambition could not be made of sterner stuff", but that Simon Cowell and the remainder of the population would breathe "a major sigh of relief" at the abandonment of her showbiz dreams. More positively, Stephen wrote that she loved the bravery in "both the humour and pathos that Steph's manipulation of her cancer brings."
Reviewing the Steph-centric spin-off In Too Deep for The Times, Tim Teeman commented that while late-night Hollyoaks episodes had previously been amusing, "sexed-up" versions of the main show, with In Too Deep it became "less shagathon, more What Lies Beneath". The episode was selected as recommended viewing by Laws of the Sunday Mercury. The launch of Hollyoaks Later series one, in which Niall returns to target Steph, was named a "Satellite Pick of the Day" by the Daily Record. Christopher Howse, writing "Tatworld" for The Daily Telegraph—a column chronicling tabloid culture—named Steph and her family joint tenth in a list of Top Ten Deans, which included entrants such as Dean Koontz, Dean Gaffney and Richard Dean Anderson.
Read more about this topic: Steph Cunningham
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