Soap opera only lasted one year. Nevertheless, soap operas gained increasing prominence on UK television schedules. In 1995, Channel 4 premiered "Hollyoaks", a soap with a youth focus. When Channel 5 launched in March 1997, it debuted the soap opera "Family Affairs", which was formatted as a week-daily soap, airing Monday through Fridays. "Brookside"s premise evolved during the 1990s, phasing out the politicised stories of the 1980s and shifting the emphasis to controversial and sensationalist stories such as child rape, sibling incest, religious cults and drug addiction, including the infamous 'body under the patio' storyline that ran from 1993 to 1995, and
Valentine Pelka opera "Family Affairs" as Simon Thornton. His sister, Kazia, was also a leading player in "Family Affairs"; however, that was after Valentine had appeared in the soap opera. Of the feature films in which Valentine has performed, the best-known was Roman Polanski's 2002 film "The Pianist". His supporting comedic role in "Under the Tuscan Sun" was performed mute. He returned to stage work in 2013 when he reprised his role as John Lennon in Sandy Marshall's biopic "And in the End" at the Jeremy Street Theatre in London. Also in 1999, he had a guest starring role in "" as