Appearing in two soaps was once thought excessive - now it's fashionable to have notched up a triple score as actors discover the soap way to stardom.

When Ben Hull joins the cast of five's Family Affairs next week he also joins soap's three-timers - the elite, if ever-growing, band of actors who've slipped from one soap to another to another.

Gone are the days when being a soap star was the kiss of death, with a departing actor knowing that TV producers wouldn't employ them again for many years because their faces were too familiar to viewers.

Nowadays, the more well known the better. And if the actor has been in a couple of other soaps, that's a help, not a hindrance.

Hull debuts as mysterious Adam Green in Family Affairs at a speed-dating night at the Black Swan and is set to become the Charnham soap's latest hunk. This follows six years as teen Lewis Richardson in Hollyoaks and 18 months seeing patients as doctor Gary Parr in Brookside, both on C4.

When he was first approached about Family Affairs a year ago, the thought of going into another soap filled the actor with dread. He turned them down. Hollyoaks and Brookie had been fun but he felt it was time to do something else. After 12 months of stage work, he was asked again and decided the timing was right now. He'll be around for the foreseeable future.

Fellow cast member Kazia Pelka knows how he feels, having completed her soap hat-trick when she joined Family Affairs two years ago. Her big break was in C4's Brookside, as illegal immigrant nanny Anna.

Following six years on the moors as nurse Maggie in Heartbeat, she moved to Weatherfield as heartbreaker Hazel Wilding.

"Someone said to me, 'Why do you choose soaps?'. But, if you're lucky, the work chooses you. I just take projects that interest me, and Family Affairs interested me," she says.

Gary Webster, who plays her husband Gary Costello in Family Affairs, can claim to have been in four soaps after making his name as Dennis Waterman's replacement as George Cole's sidekick in Minder.

He was in EastEnders nearly 20 years ago as a friend of villainous Nick Cotton and brother of gay Barry. Then he was a football manager in Hollyoaks and a pimp in the revived Crossroads in 2001.

Sometimes it seems as though the entire Family Affairs cast has been imported from other parts of soapland. The new King - Tom King - of Emmerdale will be remembered from his long-running association with ITV1 soap Coronation Street, as well as two years in Family Affairs as Annie Hart's dad Jack Gates, who went mad, killed his wife and then committed suicide.

Before that he spent 24 years on and off playing the Street's Billy Walker, son of Rovers publicans Jack and Annie Walker. Life in the dales is no quieter as Emmerdale's Tom King, what with keeping his unruly sons in line and jilting his bride Charity at the altar the other week.

Brookside to Weatherfield to Charnham was the route taken by Gabrielle Glaister. Four years after leaving Brookside, where she played long-suffering Patricia Farnham, she turned up in Coronation Street as Debs, sister of Rovers landlady Natalie Barnes. She didn't stay long and, after a four-year gap, arrived in Family Affairs.

Jonathan Wrather is best known as sleazy Joe Carter, who pursued Karen McDonald relentlessly round the Underworld knicker factory in Coronation Street. Previous soap convictions were taking over the role of Duncan Hart from another actor in Family Affairs and playing a murderer in Crossroads.

He would have encountered Sherrie Hewson in the hotel corridor. Her Maureen Holdsworth and screen husband Reg earned their place as one of the Street's most amusing double acts. The night their waterbed burst has become a classic Corrie moment.

Her time as snooty hotel receptionist Virginia Raven in the resurrected Crossroads was less memorable. But she hasn't deserted soapland completely as she's now seen from time to time as fishmonger Simon's mum Linda Meredith in Emmerdale.

Meg Johnson can claim to have appeared in all three top soaps. She's currently in Emmerdale as Pearl Ladderbanks, having arrived directly from playing Brookside's Brigid McKenna.

Her soap debut came in Coronation Street more than 30 years ago, playing a drunk. That was the first of three characters she's played in that series. Others were Brenda Holden in 1976 and then, five years later, Eunice Nuttall, who married Fred Gee.

Julie Peasgood made an impression in Emmerdale in the 1990s as a leather-clad tax inspector biker having an affair with fellow motorbike enthusiast Alan Turner. Before that, her character Fran had a baby with bad boy Barry Grant in Brookside and most recently she was in Hollyoaks as Jacqui, who dated pub owner Jack before moving to Spain.

Geordie actress Jill Halfpenny already has two soaps under her belt, three if you count Byker Grove. She played nurse Rebecca, whose affair led to the breakup of Martin Platt's marriage in Coronation Street, and then moved to Albert Square as the new woman in Phil Mitchell's life in EastEnders. As she was one of the youngsters in Newcastle-set junior soap Byker Grove at the start of her career, Halfpenny can rightly claim to be a three-timer.

Now she could add another, or rather reprise one of those previous roles. The story goes that when Street producers heard she was being axed from EastEnders, they rang to ask if she'd like to return to Weatherfield and complicate Martin's life a bit more. Fresh from winning Strictly Come Dancing and about to star in the London West End production of the musical Chicago, she has no time at present. But the lure of notching up another soap appearance could prove too great to resist in the end.

Published: 15/01/2005