Grange Hill
Encyclopedia
Grange Hill is a British television drama
series originally made by the BBC
. The show began in 1978 on BBC1 and was one of the longest running programmes on British television
. It was created by Phil Redmond
who is also responsible for the Channel 4
dramas Brookside
and Hollyoaks
; other notable production team members down the years have included producer
Colin Cant
and script editor
Anthony Minghella
.
On 6 February 2008, it was announced that Grange Hill would be cancelled
after 30 years and the last episode was shown on 15 September 2008.
of Grange Hill in the (equally fictitious) borough of North London
called "Northam" (although when filming moved to Liverpool
in 2003, it ceased to have any specific location), and follows the lives of the students as they progress through school. The series was to have originally been called "Grange Park", which would go on to be used as the name of the school in another Redmond creation, the Channel 4
soap opera Brookside
(1982–2003)
comedy
writer Phil Redmond
, who first approached various television companies with the idea in 1975, unsuccessfully. In 1976, he managed to sell the idea to the BBC
, and the drama executive Anna Home gave the series a trial run of nine episodes, the first being broadcast on 8 February 1978.
From the start, the series caused controversy for its real-life, gritty portrayal of school life
, rather than the more idealistic school drama
s that preceded it. Redmond has said that he wasn't really able to start pushing the boundaries until later series. This led to Redmond being summoned to lunch by BBC bosses and forced to agree that there would be no further series unless he toned things down. Grange Hills highest profile period was undoubtedly the mid-late 1980s. One of the most famous storylines during this time was that of Zammo McGuire and his addiction to heroin. This storyline ran over two series (1986–87) and focused on Zammo's descent into drugs and how it strained his relationship with girlfriend Jackie and friend Kevin. The show's other favourite characters during this period were Gonch and Hollo played by John Holmes and Bradley Sheppard. During his time at the school (1985–89) Gonch took part in many money-making schemes, most unsuccessful. There was a comedic element to the duo's relationship that worked well with viewers. Script editor Anthony Minghella
, who worked on the series for several years during the 1980s, later won an Academy Award for Best Director for the film The English Patient
in 1996.
During the 1990s, Grange Hill did not receive the same media attention it did just a few years previously. The teachers were now equals in the narrative with their personal lives taking up almost as much time as those of the pupils. In 1994, two characters were introduced with disabilities
, Denny Roberts (Lisa Hammond), who suffered from dwarfism
, and Rachel Burns (Francesca Martinez
), who had cerebral palsy
. Both characters were presented as "one of the gang" and hated any special treatment because of their circumstances. This prompted the BFI's 2002 publication The Hill And Beyond to comment that Grange Hill had perhaps become politically correct. Beginning on 4 April 1993, to celebrate Grange Hill's 15th anniversary, the first fifteen series of Grange Hill were repeated during CBBC's Sunday, and later Saturday morning slots on BBC1 and BBC2. The repeats ended with Series 16 in 1999. Interest in Grange Hill renewed in the late 1990s and the series celebrated its 20th anniversary with the introduction of sinister Scottish bully Sean Pearce (Iain Robertson
), who carried a knife and slashed the face of a female classmate. Cast member Laura Sadler
, who was heavily involved in this storyline, died after falling out of a building in June 2003; four years earlier her Grange Hill character Judi Jeffreys was killed after slipping and falling out of the window of a burning storeroom in the school.
By 2001, the series was almost entirely issue-led and the decision to tackle the subject of rape
upset some parents. But when Phil Redmond took over production of Grange Hill in 2003, his plan was to get the show back to its roots and the issues were toned down as Redmond skewed the show towards a younger audience. In early 2006, it was announced a film of Grange Hill was to be released in late 2007 focusing on the lives of former pupils but has not yet appeared.
Grange Hill returned on 14 April 2008 with its final series, including a return of the original theme music. Series 31 returned to BBC1 after the 2007 series was shown exclusively on the CBBC.
, then the show was made independently for the corporation by Mersey TV
, the production house founded by Redmond (and later renamed as Lime Pictures), hence the reason for the production move.
in North London
, which was used as the Grange Hill setting for the first two series. For the series 3, in 1980, exterior filming moved to Willesden High School in Willesden Green, which was similar in looks to Kingsbury and was also situated in a residential area of the capital. In 1981, Grange Hill moved to Holborn College
(now Fulham Preparatory School) in Greyhound Road, Hammersmith. This school looked very different from the two that had been used previously, and it was also in a built-up area of London. Holborn College was the longest serving of the "real schools", remaining on screen until 1985. Up to and including 1985, studio scenes were shot at BBC Television Centre
in London.
, would double as Grange Hill's "lower school".
The change was explained on screen with an elaborate storyline whereby Grange Hill merged with rival schools Brookdale and Rodney Bennett to form a new school, Grange Hill. In Series 8 the merger had taken place and Grange Hill operated as a split-site school; the former Rodney Bennett building (Neptune House) being the lower school and the original Grange Hill building (still Holborn College) the upper school.
In Series 9, the Upper School building was condemned after a fire, allowing production of Grange Hill to fully move to Elstree including studio work. Grange Hill was, at this time, made as an outside broadcast in the same way as its stablemate, EastEnders
. New producer Diana Kyle switched filming to a single camera format from 1999, at which time a filmic effect was also added, to the displeasure of some fans.
A new school entrance set was unveiled in 1990 and remained in use until 2002, with cosmetic modifications along the way. However, as the 1990s progressed more use was made of real schools including the Nicholas Hawksmoor School and Bushey Meads School
, and St Audrey's School in Hatfield. The headmistress of Bushey Meads School was said to be delighted Grange Hill was moving to Liverpool in 2002.
to produce the next three series of the programme. Production moved to Mersey TV's studios in Childwall
, Liverpool
, from Series 26 onwards and for the first time in many years, the appearance of Grange Hill School itself would change radically. On screen, an explosion ripped through the school at the end of Series 25 and during Series 26, tarpaulins covered most of the new "school" to mask the "fire damage".
Phil Redmond originally wanted children from all over the country to participate in the relaunched Grange Hill, having a variety of regional accents in the series as opposed to just the London area voices which had become associated with the programme. In the event new characters were almost exclusively cast from the north west of England due to the logistics of the child employment laws.
Real schools in the locality were also used including Croxteth
Comprehensive, Holly Lodge Girls' School and St Hilda's C of E High School in Liverpool. In 2005, the former Brookside
Parade set at Mersey TV was redeveloped to benefit Grange Hill and the new "Creative Learning Centre" subsequently became an integral part of the show. With the cancellation of Grange Hill, the CLC exterior set has now been turned into skateboard park set for Grange Hill' s stablemate show Hollyoaks
while the former Grange Hill school frontage has become a permanent exterior for Hollyoaks High.
into the swimming pool
(1978; as a result of which, following letters of complaint from teachers and parents, the episode was withdrawn from the repeat season), rape
(2001), heroin addiction
(1986), Asperger syndrome
(2001), knife crime
(1998) and attempted suicide
(2005), prompting many complaints from viewers. Grange Hill broke new ground by the inclusion of a gay
teacher, Mr Brisley, who was in the cast from 1992 to 1999.
In 2005, the character Holly Parsons was wrongly heralded as Grange Hills first deaf character. While it is true that the actress who played her, Rebecca-Anne Withey, is the series' first deaf cast member, Grange Hill first featured a deaf character, Eric Wallace, in 1985.
During the final series in 2008, Grange Hill cut back on the harder-hitting issues and concentrated more on the early years of secondary school. The final series, though concentrating mainly on lighter aspects of school life, still dealt with some social issues; a Year 6 pupil battled with dyslexia
while it turned out school bully Chloe Moore had to care for a disabled
parent.
For Series 31, Lime Pictures creative director Tony Wood set about the task of meeting CBBC's new requirements. He shifted much of the action away from general school life to "The Grange", the school's multimedia learning centre which was given a radical makeover and became as much a "hang out" as a learning resource. The emphasis was now on younger characters with a group of Year 6 pupils regularly coming to use The Grange from primary school; storylines were much lighter and fantasy sequences were introduced. One episode, "Boarderman", saw a Year 7 pupil become a masked skateboarding superhero campaigning for an end to the school's ban on skateboarding. In another, "Veggin' out", a girl and her classmates smuggled animals from a local petting farm into school, believing they were destined for slaughter.
The Observer
reported on 13 January 2008 that the BBC's intention was to shift the action away from Grange Hill School and into The Grange completely. Phil Redmond responded in the same article by calling for Grange Hill to be scrapped, saying the programme had been "robbed of its original purpose". Redmond had been planning a hard-hitting storyline to return Grange Hill to its gritty origins in Series 31, and although he signed off the changes he believed it wasn't his show any more.
controller Anne Gilchrist just two days before the show's official 30th birthday.
Grange Hill ended on Monday 15 September 2008 with a further return appearance by Todd Carty, in which Tucker persuaded his nephew Togger Johnson not to give up on school like he did. Other than that there would be no spectacular conclusion; characters simply walked out of the school gates after their end-of-term prom, an almost mirror-image of how pupils walked into the school gates in the very first episode.
In 2006, the BBC had announced big plans for the show's 30th birthday including special programming on BBC2, possible repeats and a lavish reunion of former stars during 2008. But in the event, none of these celebrations happened aside from a special Radio 4 programme Grange Hill: Soap Pioneer broadcast on 4 September 2008. The last Grange Hill was watched by 500,000 viewers.
Seven months later, Ashes to Ashes
paid homage to the series in its episode 2.1 (airing 20 April 2009). In that episode, the time-travelling protagonist, DI Alex Drake
, sees her daughter Molly incorporated into an episode of Grange Hill on the evening of 3 or 5 April 1982 [calendar indicates 3 April; the news report was from 5 April]. Molly (in new footage) tells headmistress Bridget McClusky (appearing as archival footage and Gwyneth Powell
's newly recorded audio) that she and Tucker got into a fight when Tucker said her mother Alex was dead.
(1983–1985) which ran for three series, and furthered the acting career of Todd Carty
. The three series saw the two lead characters (Tucker and Alan) when finding work. Also, the 1986 cast released Grange Hill: The Album, with two singles: "Just Say No
" (tying in with a character's heroin addiction) and "You Know the Teacher (Smash Head)". The album was re-released on CD on 12 November 2007, as part of the BBC's 30th Anniversary celebrations.
In 2005, Justin Lee Collins
reunited some of the cast members from the 1980s in the documentary Bring Back...Grange Hill.
" by Alan Hawkshaw
, a track from the Themes International music library composed one hour before it was recorded during a session in Munich
, Germany. Grange Hill was the first programme to use it as a theme followed by the popular quiz show Give Us a Clue
, whose makers wanted it despite it already being played on Grange Hill. The version used by Give Us A Clue was a special arrangement that was significantly different from that used by Grange Hill.
The theme was rerecorded in 1988 and updated along with the opening titles and lasted until 1990, when a brand new theme was specially written for the series by Peter Moss. Moss had previously written some special hip-hop music for a storyline in Series 11 of Grange Hill. His theme tune lasted until 2007, although as the years progressed less and less of it was heard as the opening titles got increasingly shorter, with the final version being no more than about 10–12 seconds long.
For the final series, "Chicken Man" was reinstated as the main theme, albeit in a shorter form.
The last four notes of the original theme song were heard when Brookside
, one of Phil Redmond's other TV series, aired its final episode in November 2003.
s of Grange Hill over the years; the full list is as follows:
Mr Llewelyn did not appear on screen during the 1980 series: the day-to-day running of the school was left to the highly competent but much put-upon deputy head Mr Keating (Robert Hartley), who was also deputy head under Mrs McClusky until 1984. Similarly, Mr McNab was never seen at all during the mid-1990s; the most senior authority figure being Mr Robson who at this point was deputy head. Mr Robson himself did not appear on screen during Series 27, even though he was still headmaster for the early part of the series. Mrs McClusky, perhaps Grange Hill's best known head teacher, was demoted to deputy head temporarily in 1985 having had to reapply, unsuccessfully, for her post following the merger of Grange Hill with Brookdale and Rodney Bennett. When the new head, Mr Humphries, was killed in a road accident the following year, Mrs McClusky was again acting head and her permanent headship was later confirmed.
The final headmistress of Grange Hill was Miss Gayle, introduced as deputy head in the 2007 series although she did not appear in Series 31.
Eight annuals were published from 1981 to 1988.
Comic strip adventures appeared in the short-lived BEEB
magazine, which portrayed new stories, and the longer running Fast Forward
, magazine which loosely followed the early 90's series. Additional comic strips occurred in School Fun
and in the Radio Times
. Grange Hill had its own dedicated magazine, but this only lasted two issues, although there was a holiday special too.
There were 14 short story books and novels, some of which were written or co-written by series creator Phil Redmond
, but which also involved authors such as Robert Leeson
and Jan Needle
. Below is a full list of Grange Hill short story books and novels:
These abridged versions of the first two series of the show were also released on Betamax
, Video 2000
and laserdisc
around the same time.
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
series originally made by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. The show began in 1978 on BBC1 and was one of the longest running programmes on British television
British television
Public television broadcasting started in the United Kingdom in 1936, and now has a collection of free and subscription services over a variety of distribution media, through which there are over 480 channelsTaking the base Sky EPG TV Channels. A breakdown is impossible due to a) the number of...
. It was created by Phil Redmond
Phil Redmond
Phil Redmond CBE is an English television producer and screenwriter.He is well-known for creating several popular television series such as Grange Hill , Brookside and Hollyoaks...
who is also responsible for the Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
dramas Brookside
Brookside
Brookside is a defunct British soap opera set in Liverpool, England. The series began on the launch night of Channel 4 on 2 November 1982, and ran for 21 years until 4 November 2003...
and Hollyoaks
Hollyoaks
Hollyoaks is a long-running British television soap opera, first broadcast on Channel 4 on 23 October 1995. It was originally devised by Phil Redmond, who has also devised shows including Brookside and Grange Hill...
; other notable production team members down the years have included producer
Television producer
The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...
Colin Cant
Colin Cant
Colin Cant is a British television producer and director, best known for his work in the children's department of BBC Television. Within that department, he was for many years involved as both a director and producer of the long-running children's drama series Grange Hill, and also directed...
and script editor
Script editor
A script editor is a member of the production team of scripted television programmes, usually dramas and comedies. The script editor has many responsibilities including finding new script writers, developing storyline and series ideas with writers, ensuring that scripts are suitable for production...
Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella, CBE was an English film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was Chairman of the Board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007....
.
On 6 February 2008, it was announced that Grange Hill would be cancelled
Cancellation (television)
In television, cancellation refers to the termination of a program by a network, typically because of low viewership and/or unfavourable critical reviews. Another reason why television programs can be cancelled is to make room for new television programs...
after 30 years and the last episode was shown on 15 September 2008.
Plot
The drama was centred on the fictional comprehensive schoolComprehensive school
A comprehensive school is a state school that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude. This is in contrast to the selective school system, where admission is restricted on the basis of a selection criteria. The term is commonly used in relation to the United...
of Grange Hill in the (equally fictitious) borough of North London
North London
North London is the northern part of London, England. It is an imprecise description and the area it covers is defined differently for a range of purposes. Common to these definitions is that it includes districts located north of the River Thames and is used in comparison with South...
called "Northam" (although when filming moved to Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
in 2003, it ceased to have any specific location), and follows the lives of the students as they progress through school. The series was to have originally been called "Grange Park", which would go on to be used as the name of the school in another Redmond creation, the Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
soap opera Brookside
Brookside
Brookside is a defunct British soap opera set in Liverpool, England. The series began on the launch night of Channel 4 on 2 November 1982, and ran for 21 years until 4 November 2003...
(1982–2003)
Series history
Grange Hill was originally conceived by ATVAssociated TeleVision
Associated Television, often referred to as ATV, was a British television company, holder of various licences to broadcast on the ITV network from 24 September 1955 until 00:34 on 1 January 1982...
comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
writer Phil Redmond
Phil Redmond
Phil Redmond CBE is an English television producer and screenwriter.He is well-known for creating several popular television series such as Grange Hill , Brookside and Hollyoaks...
, who first approached various television companies with the idea in 1975, unsuccessfully. In 1976, he managed to sell the idea to the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, and the drama executive Anna Home gave the series a trial run of nine episodes, the first being broadcast on 8 February 1978.
From the start, the series caused controversy for its real-life, gritty portrayal of school life
School story
The school story is a fiction genre centering on older pre-adolescent and adolescent school life, at its most popular in the first half of the twentieth century. While examples do exist in other countries, it is most commonly set in English boarding schools and mostly written in girls and boys sub...
, rather than the more idealistic school drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
s that preceded it. Redmond has said that he wasn't really able to start pushing the boundaries until later series. This led to Redmond being summoned to lunch by BBC bosses and forced to agree that there would be no further series unless he toned things down. Grange Hills highest profile period was undoubtedly the mid-late 1980s. One of the most famous storylines during this time was that of Zammo McGuire and his addiction to heroin. This storyline ran over two series (1986–87) and focused on Zammo's descent into drugs and how it strained his relationship with girlfriend Jackie and friend Kevin. The show's other favourite characters during this period were Gonch and Hollo played by John Holmes and Bradley Sheppard. During his time at the school (1985–89) Gonch took part in many money-making schemes, most unsuccessful. There was a comedic element to the duo's relationship that worked well with viewers. Script editor Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella, CBE was an English film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was Chairman of the Board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007....
, who worked on the series for several years during the 1980s, later won an Academy Award for Best Director for the film The English Patient
The English Patient (film)
The English Patient is a 1996 romantic drama film based on the novel of the same name by Sri Lankan-Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje. The film, written for the screen and directed by Anthony Minghella, won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture...
in 1996.
During the 1990s, Grange Hill did not receive the same media attention it did just a few years previously. The teachers were now equals in the narrative with their personal lives taking up almost as much time as those of the pupils. In 1994, two characters were introduced with disabilities
Disability
A disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.Many people would rather be referred to as a person with a disability instead of handicapped...
, Denny Roberts (Lisa Hammond), who suffered from dwarfism
Dwarfism
Dwarfism is short stature resulting from a medical condition. It is sometimes defined as an adult height of less than 4 feet 10 inches , although this definition is problematic because short stature in itself is not a disorder....
, and Rachel Burns (Francesca Martinez
Francesca Martinez
Francesca Martinez is an English stand-up comedienne and actress. She has toured internationally, including sell-out runs at the Edinburgh Festival, the Melbourne Comedy Festival and the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal...
), who had cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy is an umbrella term encompassing a group of non-progressive, non-contagious motor conditions that cause physical disability in human development, chiefly in the various areas of body movement....
. Both characters were presented as "one of the gang" and hated any special treatment because of their circumstances. This prompted the BFI's 2002 publication The Hill And Beyond to comment that Grange Hill had perhaps become politically correct. Beginning on 4 April 1993, to celebrate Grange Hill's 15th anniversary, the first fifteen series of Grange Hill were repeated during CBBC's Sunday, and later Saturday morning slots on BBC1 and BBC2. The repeats ended with Series 16 in 1999. Interest in Grange Hill renewed in the late 1990s and the series celebrated its 20th anniversary with the introduction of sinister Scottish bully Sean Pearce (Iain Robertson
Iain Robertson
Iain Robertson is a BAFTA winning Scottish actor. He was once described by Barry Norman as "the best thing to come out of Scotland since whisky"....
), who carried a knife and slashed the face of a female classmate. Cast member Laura Sadler
Laura Sadler
Laura Ruth Sadler was an English actress best known for her role as nurse Sandy Harper in the BBC One hospital drama series Holby City.-TV career:...
, who was heavily involved in this storyline, died after falling out of a building in June 2003; four years earlier her Grange Hill character Judi Jeffreys was killed after slipping and falling out of the window of a burning storeroom in the school.
By 2001, the series was almost entirely issue-led and the decision to tackle the subject of rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
upset some parents. But when Phil Redmond took over production of Grange Hill in 2003, his plan was to get the show back to its roots and the issues were toned down as Redmond skewed the show towards a younger audience. In early 2006, it was announced a film of Grange Hill was to be released in late 2007 focusing on the lives of former pupils but has not yet appeared.
Grange Hill returned on 14 April 2008 with its final series, including a return of the original theme music. Series 31 returned to BBC1 after the 2007 series was shown exclusively on the CBBC.
Production history
For its first 25 years Grange Hill was produced in-house by the BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, then the show was made independently for the corporation by Mersey TV
Mersey Television
Lime Pictures, formerly known as Mersey Television, is a British television production company, founded by producer and writer Phil Redmond in the early 1980s....
, the production house founded by Redmond (and later renamed as Lime Pictures), hence the reason for the production move.
Television Centre years: 1978–85
Grange Hill was originally filmed at real schools in London. The first of these would be Kingsbury High SchoolKingsbury High School
Kingsbury High School is a large High School in Kingsbury, London, England notable for a number of reasons including its national reputation for Mathematics, its many eminent alumni and for the fact that the Upper School site at Princes Avenue, NW9 London, is recognisable to many British adults...
in North London
North London
North London is the northern part of London, England. It is an imprecise description and the area it covers is defined differently for a range of purposes. Common to these definitions is that it includes districts located north of the River Thames and is used in comparison with South...
, which was used as the Grange Hill setting for the first two series. For the series 3, in 1980, exterior filming moved to Willesden High School in Willesden Green, which was similar in looks to Kingsbury and was also situated in a residential area of the capital. In 1981, Grange Hill moved to Holborn College
Holborn College
Holborn College is a college of higher education in London, England specialising in law and business. The college's degrees are accredited by the University of Wales, University of London and Liverpool John Moores University....
(now Fulham Preparatory School) in Greyhound Road, Hammersmith. This school looked very different from the two that had been used previously, and it was also in a built-up area of London. Holborn College was the longest serving of the "real schools", remaining on screen until 1985. Up to and including 1985, studio scenes were shot at BBC Television Centre
BBC Television Centre
BBC Television Centre at White City in West London is the headquarters of BBC Television. Officially opened on 29 June 1960, it remains one of the largest to this day; having featured over the years as backdrop to many BBC programmes, it is one of the most readily recognisable such facilities...
in London.
Elstree years: 1985–2002
Popular rumour suggests Grange Hill was forced to move between real schools so often because fans disrupted filming. In 1985, this problem was resolved when the BBC purchased the former ATV studios in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire. The studios would become known as BBC Elstree Centre and from Series 8, some exterior filming was switched to the closed Elstree set. A 1960s office block, Neptune HouseNeptune House
Neptune House is an office block situated in the grounds of BBC Elstree Centre in Clarendon Road, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire.The imposing office block dates from the 1960s and is distinctive by its glass-fronted entrance. Neptune House has featured in several popular television series, most notably...
, would double as Grange Hill's "lower school".
The change was explained on screen with an elaborate storyline whereby Grange Hill merged with rival schools Brookdale and Rodney Bennett to form a new school, Grange Hill. In Series 8 the merger had taken place and Grange Hill operated as a split-site school; the former Rodney Bennett building (Neptune House) being the lower school and the original Grange Hill building (still Holborn College) the upper school.
In Series 9, the Upper School building was condemned after a fire, allowing production of Grange Hill to fully move to Elstree including studio work. Grange Hill was, at this time, made as an outside broadcast in the same way as its stablemate, EastEnders
EastEnders
EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
. New producer Diana Kyle switched filming to a single camera format from 1999, at which time a filmic effect was also added, to the displeasure of some fans.
A new school entrance set was unveiled in 1990 and remained in use until 2002, with cosmetic modifications along the way. However, as the 1990s progressed more use was made of real schools including the Nicholas Hawksmoor School and Bushey Meads School
Bushey Meads School
Bushey Meads School is a foundation secondary school in Bushey, Hertfordshire, UK. The current head teacher is Mr Keith Douglas, B.A. Hons, M.A., who started as a new member of staff in the school in December 2005....
, and St Audrey's School in Hatfield. The headmistress of Bushey Meads School was said to be delighted Grange Hill was moving to Liverpool in 2002.
Liverpool years: 2003–08
Early in 2002 it was announced that Grange Hill creator Phil Redmond had signed a deal for his production company Mersey TVMersey Television
Lime Pictures, formerly known as Mersey Television, is a British television production company, founded by producer and writer Phil Redmond in the early 1980s....
to produce the next three series of the programme. Production moved to Mersey TV's studios in Childwall
Childwall
Childwall is a suburb of Liverpool, Merseyside, England and a Liverpool City Council Ward. It is located to the south of the city, bordered by Gateacre, Wavertree, Belle Vale, Broadgreen, Bowring Park and Mossley Hill...
, Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, from Series 26 onwards and for the first time in many years, the appearance of Grange Hill School itself would change radically. On screen, an explosion ripped through the school at the end of Series 25 and during Series 26, tarpaulins covered most of the new "school" to mask the "fire damage".
Phil Redmond originally wanted children from all over the country to participate in the relaunched Grange Hill, having a variety of regional accents in the series as opposed to just the London area voices which had become associated with the programme. In the event new characters were almost exclusively cast from the north west of England due to the logistics of the child employment laws.
Real schools in the locality were also used including Croxteth
Croxteth
Croxteth is a suburb of Liverpool, Merseyside, England and a Liverpool City Council Ward. Although housing in the area is predominantly modern, the suburb has some notable history. It is known locally as "Crocky"...
Comprehensive, Holly Lodge Girls' School and St Hilda's C of E High School in Liverpool. In 2005, the former Brookside
Brookside
Brookside is a defunct British soap opera set in Liverpool, England. The series began on the launch night of Channel 4 on 2 November 1982, and ran for 21 years until 4 November 2003...
Parade set at Mersey TV was redeveloped to benefit Grange Hill and the new "Creative Learning Centre" subsequently became an integral part of the show. With the cancellation of Grange Hill, the CLC exterior set has now been turned into skateboard park set for Grange Hill
Hollyoaks
Hollyoaks is a long-running British television soap opera, first broadcast on Channel 4 on 23 October 1995. It was originally devised by Phil Redmond, who has also devised shows including Brookside and Grange Hill...
while the former Grange Hill school frontage has become a permanent exterior for Hollyoaks High.
Issues covered
The programme has covered many controversial storylines, ranging from students throwing benchesBench (furniture)
A bench is a piece of furniture, on which several people may sit at the same time. Benches are typically made of wood, but may also be made of metal, stone, or synthetic materials. Many benches have arm and back rests; some have no back rest and can be sat on from either side. In public areas,...
into the swimming pool
Swimming pool
A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, or simply a pool, is a container filled with water intended for swimming or water-based recreation. There are many standard sizes; the largest is the Olympic-size swimming pool...
(1978; as a result of which, following letters of complaint from teachers and parents, the episode was withdrawn from the repeat season), rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
(2001), heroin addiction
Substance dependence
The section about substance dependence in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does not use the word addiction at all. It explains:...
(1986), Asperger syndrome
Asperger syndrome
Asperger's syndrome that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, alongside restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. It differs from other autism spectrum disorders by its relative preservation of linguistic and cognitive development...
(2001), knife crime
Knife legislation
Knife legislation is defined as the body of statutory law and/or case law promulgated or enacted by a government or other governing jurisdiction that prohibits, criminalizes, or restricts the otherwise legal manufacture, importation, sale, transfer, possession, transport, and/or use of knives.The...
(1998) and attempted suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
(2005), prompting many complaints from viewers. Grange Hill broke new ground by the inclusion of a gay
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
teacher, Mr Brisley, who was in the cast from 1992 to 1999.
In 2005, the character Holly Parsons was wrongly heralded as Grange Hills first deaf character. While it is true that the actress who played her, Rebecca-Anne Withey, is the series' first deaf cast member, Grange Hill first featured a deaf character, Eric Wallace, in 1985.
During the final series in 2008, Grange Hill cut back on the harder-hitting issues and concentrated more on the early years of secondary school. The final series, though concentrating mainly on lighter aspects of school life, still dealt with some social issues; a Year 6 pupil battled with dyslexia
Dyslexia
Dyslexia is a very broad term defining a learning disability that impairs a person's fluency or comprehension accuracy in being able to read, and which can manifest itself as a difficulty with phonological awareness, phonological decoding, orthographic coding, auditory short-term memory, or rapid...
while it turned out school bully Chloe Moore had to care for a disabled
Disability
A disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.Many people would rather be referred to as a person with a disability instead of handicapped...
parent.
"The Grange"
In 2007 BBC Children's ordered major changes to Grange Hill so that it fitted in with the new requirement that all programmes under the CBBC banner must appeal to an audience age 12 and under — younger than the traditional age group for Grange Hill, which was the same as to slightly younger than the secondary school characters. Under a deal signed in 2005 Lime Pictures was contracted to produce Grange Hill until 2008, so changes began to be made.For Series 31, Lime Pictures creative director Tony Wood set about the task of meeting CBBC's new requirements. He shifted much of the action away from general school life to "The Grange", the school's multimedia learning centre which was given a radical makeover and became as much a "hang out" as a learning resource. The emphasis was now on younger characters with a group of Year 6 pupils regularly coming to use The Grange from primary school; storylines were much lighter and fantasy sequences were introduced. One episode, "Boarderman", saw a Year 7 pupil become a masked skateboarding superhero campaigning for an end to the school's ban on skateboarding. In another, "Veggin' out", a girl and her classmates smuggled animals from a local petting farm into school, believing they were destined for slaughter.
The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
reported on 13 January 2008 that the BBC's intention was to shift the action away from Grange Hill School and into The Grange completely. Phil Redmond responded in the same article by calling for Grange Hill to be scrapped, saying the programme had been "robbed of its original purpose". Redmond had been planning a hard-hitting storyline to return Grange Hill to its gritty origins in Series 31, and although he signed off the changes he believed it wasn't his show any more.
Cancellation
On 6 February 2008, the BBC announced Grange Hill was to be axed after exactly 30 years. The announcement was made by CBBCCBBC
CBBC is one of two brand names used for the BBC's children's television strands. Between 1985 and 2002, CBBC was the name given to all the BBC's programmes on TV for children aged under 14...
controller Anne Gilchrist just two days before the show's official 30th birthday.
Grange Hill ended on Monday 15 September 2008 with a further return appearance by Todd Carty, in which Tucker persuaded his nephew Togger Johnson not to give up on school like he did. Other than that there would be no spectacular conclusion; characters simply walked out of the school gates after their end-of-term prom, an almost mirror-image of how pupils walked into the school gates in the very first episode.
In 2006, the BBC had announced big plans for the show's 30th birthday including special programming on BBC2, possible repeats and a lavish reunion of former stars during 2008. But in the event, none of these celebrations happened aside from a special Radio 4 programme Grange Hill: Soap Pioneer broadcast on 4 September 2008. The last Grange Hill was watched by 500,000 viewers.
Seven months later, Ashes to Ashes
Ashes to Ashes (TV series)
Ashes to Ashes is a British science fiction and police procedural drama television series, serving as the sequel to Life on Mars.The series began airing on BBC One in February 2008. A second series began broadcasting in April 2009...
paid homage to the series in its episode 2.1 (airing 20 April 2009). In that episode, the time-travelling protagonist, DI Alex Drake
Alex Drake
DI Alexandra "Alex" Drake is a fictional character in BBC One's science fiction/police procedural drama, Ashes to Ashes. The character is portrayed by Keeley Hawes and as a child by Lucy Cole.-Character history:...
, sees her daughter Molly incorporated into an episode of Grange Hill on the evening of 3 or 5 April 1982 [calendar indicates 3 April; the news report was from 5 April]. Molly (in new footage) tells headmistress Bridget McClusky (appearing as archival footage and Gwyneth Powell
Gwyneth Powell
Gwyneth Powell is an English actress who is most known for her portrayal of headmistress Bridget McCluskey in the BBC television series Grange Hill for eleven series between 1981 and 1991.-Career:...
's newly recorded audio) that she and Tucker got into a fight when Tucker said her mother Alex was dead.
Spin-offs
The show spawned a successful spin-off called Tucker's LuckTucker's Luck
Tucker's Luck was a British television series made by the BBC between 1983 and 1985.The series is a spin-off from the school drama Grange Hill and capitalised on the popularity of one of the series' original characters — Peter "Tucker" Jenkins, played by Todd Carty.Tucker's Luck followed the...
(1983–1985) which ran for three series, and furthered the acting career of Todd Carty
Todd Carty
Todd Carty is an Irish actor and director, who has grown up on television screens in a variety of roles. His stage work has varied from pantomime to serious drama, as well as radio plays, voiceovers, commercials, narrations, and films...
. The three series saw the two lead characters (Tucker and Alan) when finding work. Also, the 1986 cast released Grange Hill: The Album, with two singles: "Just Say No
Just Say No
"Just Say No" was an advertising campaign, part of the U.S. "War on Drugs", prevalent during the 1980s and early 1990s, to discourage children from engaging in recreational drug use by offering various ways of saying no. Eventually, this also expanded the realm of "Just Say No" to violence and...
" (tying in with a character's heroin addiction) and "You Know the Teacher (Smash Head)". The album was re-released on CD on 12 November 2007, as part of the BBC's 30th Anniversary celebrations.
In 2005, Justin Lee Collins
Justin Lee Collins
Justin Lee Collins, commonly known as JLC, is an award-winning English comedian and television presenter.A Bristolian, he's well known for his strong West Country accent, shaggy appearance and colourful shirts....
reunited some of the cast members from the 1980s in the documentary Bring Back...Grange Hill.
Theme music
The theme used for the first 12 years, which returned for the final series of Grange Hill was "Chicken ManChicken Man (theme tune)
Chicken Man is a tune composed by Alan Hawkshaw which is notable for its use in two popular British TV series since the 1970s.It was recorded in Munich and was part of the Themes International music library...
" by Alan Hawkshaw
Alan Hawkshaw
Alan Hawkshaw is a British composer and performer, particularly of themes for movies and television programmes...
, a track from the Themes International music library composed one hour before it was recorded during a session in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, Germany. Grange Hill was the first programme to use it as a theme followed by the popular quiz show Give Us a Clue
Give Us A Clue
Give Us a Clue is a British televised game show version of charades which was broadcast on ITV from 1979 to 1992. The original host was Michael Aspel from 1979 to 1983, followed by Michael Parkinson from 1984 to 1992. The show featured two teams, one captained by Lionel Blair and the other by Una...
, whose makers wanted it despite it already being played on Grange Hill. The version used by Give Us A Clue was a special arrangement that was significantly different from that used by Grange Hill.
The theme was rerecorded in 1988 and updated along with the opening titles and lasted until 1990, when a brand new theme was specially written for the series by Peter Moss. Moss had previously written some special hip-hop music for a storyline in Series 11 of Grange Hill. His theme tune lasted until 2007, although as the years progressed less and less of it was heard as the opening titles got increasingly shorter, with the final version being no more than about 10–12 seconds long.
For the final series, "Chicken Man" was reinstated as the main theme, albeit in a shorter form.
The last four notes of the original theme song were heard when Brookside
Brookside
Brookside is a defunct British soap opera set in Liverpool, England. The series began on the launch night of Channel 4 on 2 November 1982, and ran for 21 years until 4 November 2003...
, one of Phil Redmond's other TV series, aired its final episode in November 2003.
Head teachers
There have been many head teacherHead teacher
A head teacher or school principal is the most senior teacher, leader and manager of a school....
s of Grange Hill over the years; the full list is as follows:
| Character | Actor/Actress | Duration |
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Sean Arnold Sean Arnold is an English actor.He is best-known for his roles as Mr Llewelyn inGrange Hill in the 1970s and 1980s, and as Barney Crozier in the 1980s BBC television series Bergerac.... |
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Gwyneth Powell Gwyneth Powell is an English actress who is most known for her portrayal of headmistress Bridget McCluskey in the BBC television series Grange Hill for eleven series between 1981 and 1991.-Career:... |
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Stuart Organ Stuart Organ is a British actor.He is best known for his portrayal of the character Mr. Robson in the children's television drama Grange Hill. Stuart portrayed the series' longest-serving teacher, arriving in 1988 as the new head of PE... |
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Jacqueline Boatswain Jacqueline Boatswain is a British actress, based in London.She is best known for playing headmistress Mrs Bassinger in the long-running BBC school drama, Grange Hill, from 2003-2006. The character's first name has never been revealed, but according to the sign outside her head teacher's office it... |
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Cathy Tyson Catherine "Cathy" Tyson is an English stage, film and television actress.-Early life:The daughter of a Trinidadian barrister father and an English social worker mother, Tyson and her family moved to Liverpool when she was approximately two years old.-Career:Tyson attended the Everyman Youth... |
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Mr Llewelyn did not appear on screen during the 1980 series: the day-to-day running of the school was left to the highly competent but much put-upon deputy head Mr Keating (Robert Hartley), who was also deputy head under Mrs McClusky until 1984. Similarly, Mr McNab was never seen at all during the mid-1990s; the most senior authority figure being Mr Robson who at this point was deputy head. Mr Robson himself did not appear on screen during Series 27, even though he was still headmaster for the early part of the series. Mrs McClusky, perhaps Grange Hill's best known head teacher, was demoted to deputy head temporarily in 1985 having had to reapply, unsuccessfully, for her post following the merger of Grange Hill with Brookdale and Rodney Bennett. When the new head, Mr Humphries, was killed in a road accident the following year, Mrs McClusky was again acting head and her permanent headship was later confirmed.
The final headmistress of Grange Hill was Miss Gayle, introduced as deputy head in the 2007 series although she did not appear in Series 31.
Books
During the 1980s, when Grange Hill merchandising was at its height and the series arguably at its most popular, a number of annuals and novels were published.Eight annuals were published from 1981 to 1988.
Comic strip adventures appeared in the short-lived BEEB
Beeb
The nickname Beeb may refer to:*The British Broadcasting Corporation , sometimes called the Beeb or Auntie Beeb*BEEB, a BBC children's magazine published in 1985*The BBC Micro home computer from 1982, built for the BBC by Acorn Computers Ltd...
magazine, which portrayed new stories, and the longer running Fast Forward
Fast Forward (magazine)
Fast Forward was a weekly children's magazine launched in September 1989 by the BBC to compete with Look-in. It was aimed at seven- to 14-year-olds and was promoted heavily with trailers shown on Children's BBC. Circulation started at 210,000 copies per week, reached a peak of 340,000 in March...
, magazine which loosely followed the early 90's series. Additional comic strips occurred in School Fun
School Fun
School Fun was a British comic book that ran from the issues dated 15 October 1983 to 26 May 1984, when it merged with Buster. As the name implies, the comic's "gimmick" was that every strip revolved around school.Its strips included:...
and in the Radio Times
Radio Times
Radio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...
. Grange Hill had its own dedicated magazine, but this only lasted two issues, although there was a holiday special too.
There were 14 short story books and novels, some of which were written or co-written by series creator Phil Redmond
Phil Redmond
Phil Redmond CBE is an English television producer and screenwriter.He is well-known for creating several popular television series such as Grange Hill , Brookside and Hollyoaks...
, but which also involved authors such as Robert Leeson
Robert Leeson
Robert Arthur Leeson is a British author, mainly known for his children's books.Before becoming a writer, he worked as Literary Editor of the left-wing British newspaper the Morning Star. He is a prolific writer, having had over 70 books for young people published between 1973 and 2003...
and Jan Needle
Jan Needle
Jan Needle is an English author born in 1943. He was born and grew up in Portsmouth on the South coast of England, coming from a family with strong naval and military connections...
. Below is a full list of Grange Hill short story books and novels:
- Grange Hill Stories, by Phil Redmond. First published by the BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
in 1979. Short stories. - Grange Hill Rules OK?, by Robert Leeson. Published by Fontana Lions in 1980. The first Grange Hill novel.
- Grange Hill Goes Wild, by Robert Leeson. Published by Fontana Lions in 1980. Novel
- Grange Hill for Sale by Robert Leeson. Published by Fontana Lions in 1981. Novel
- Tucker and Co., by Phil Redmond. Published by Fontana Lions in 1982. Novel
- Grange Hill Home and Away by Robert Leeson. Published by Fontana Lions in 1982. Novel
- Great Days at Grange Hill, by Jan Needle. Published by Fontana Lions in 1984. Short stories that form a sort of prequel to Grange Hill Stories.
- Grange Hill After Hours, by Phil Redmond. Published by Magnet in 1986. Novel
- Grange Hill Graffiti, by Phil Redmond. Published by Magnet in 1986. Novel
- Grange Hill on the Run, by Phil Redmond. Published by Magnet in 1986. Novel
- Grange Hill Heroes, by Phil Redmond and David Angus. Published by Magnet in 1987. Novel
- Grange Hill Rebels, by Phil Redmond and David Angus. Published by Magnet in 1987. Novel
- Grange Hill Partners, by Phil Redmond and David Angus. Published by Magnet in 1988. Novel
- Ziggy's Working Holiday, by Phil Redmond and Margaret Simpson. Published by Magnet in 1988. Novel
Video & laserdisc release
The first and second series were originally released on the new technology of home video in the early 1980s. Both videos were edited to remove some storylines and thereby shorten running times, given the duration of early videocassettes. The front of the box for the series 1 video features a cast photograph (and small photos of specific individual characters) from series 3, as some characters pictured therein do not feature in that series. The series 2 videocassette box art features a similarly styled front cover, but with a cast photo from the correct year.These abridged versions of the first two series of the show were also released on Betamax
Betamax
Betamax was a consumer-level analog videocassette magnetic tape recording format developed by Sony, released on May 10, 1975. The cassettes contain -wide videotape in a design similar to the earlier, professional wide, U-matic format...
, Video 2000
Video 2000
Video 2000 was a consumer videocassette recorder system and analog recording videocassette standard developed by Philips and Grundig to compete with JVC's VHS and Sony's Betamax video technologies...
and laserdisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
around the same time.