Hollyoaks is welcoming two new stars to its cast line-up - Adele Silva and Ben Faulks.

The pair will play a childless couple, Angela and Mark Brown, and will be heading to the Channel 4 soap as "prospective adoptive parents".

They will make their first on-screen appearance in July.

Hollyoaks said they will feature in a storyline that sees them hoping to adopt Tom Cunningham and Peri Lomax's baby.

Talking about the storyline, a Hollyoaks spokesman said: "As the summer continues, Tom wanders down a dark path to deal with the prospect of handing his baby to another couple.

"Meanwhile Peri is still determined to give baby Cunningham-Lomax a 'better life' away from Hollyoaks and their dysfunctional families.

"Both couples face a difficult path ahead."

Silva said she was "over the moon to be joining the show" and Faulks said he was "extremely chuffed to be joining the Hollyoaks team".

Silva is no stranger to soaps, having made a name for herself as Kelly Windsor in ITVs Emmerdale from 1993 to 2011.

In March this year she gave birth to her first baby, a girl, after revealing that she had previously suffered three miscarriages.

Faulks' previous TV stints include appearing on the CBeebies children's television show Mr Bloom's Nursery.