One Summer is a British television drama series written by Willy Russell and directed by Gordon Flemyng

Gordon Flemyng

Gordon William Flemyng was a Scottish director of six theatrical features, several television films and numerous episodes of TV series, some of which he also wrote and produced. Flemyng directed both of the Dalek feature films of the 1960s, Dr...

. It stars David Morrissey

David Morrissey

David Mark Morrissey is an English actor and director. Morrissey grew up in the Kensington and Knotty Ash areas of Liverpool, and learned to act at the city's Everyman Youth Theatre. At the age of 18, he was cast in the television series One Summer , which won him recognition throughout the country...

 and Spencer Leigh

Spencer Leigh

Spencer Leigh is a British actor, who has played roles in movies such as The Garden and The Last of England, and television series such as One Summer. He is considered one of the "Brit Pack".-External links:...

 as Billy Rizley and Icky Higson, two 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...

 boys who run away to Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 one summer. It also starred James Hazeldine

James Hazeldine

James Hazeldine was a British film, stage and television actor. He was born in Salford, Lancashire.James started his career in repertory theatre, firstly in weekly rep, then at the Manchester Library theatre and on to the Royal Court Theatre in London's Sloane Square, where he appeared in the...

 and Ian Hart

Ian Hart

Ian Hart is an English stage, television and film actor.-Early life:Hart, the grandson of Irish immigrants, was born in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. He is one of three siblings and was brought up in a Roman Catholic family...

 (credited in the series as Ian Davies). The series was shown in five 50-minute episodes on 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...

 from 7 August to 4 September 1983. It was later repeated on ITV

ITV

ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

 in April 1985.

Produced by Yorkshire Television

Yorkshire Television

Yorkshire Television, now officially known as ITV Yorkshire and sometimes unofficially abbreviated to YTV, is a British television broadcaster and the contractor for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network...

, the series was filmed from April to October 1982 in Liverpool, Yorkshire and Wales. Willy Russell had his name removed from the credits after disagreements with the producers, particularly taking umbrage to the casting of Morrissey and Leigh whom he considered too old to portray the 16-year-old lead characters (they were 18 and 19 respectively at the time of filming).

One Summer was released on DVD in 2006, which includes interviews with Morrissey, Leigh and Hart.

External links

• One Summer fansite—includes original interviews with cast members Spencer Leigh, David Morrissey and Jane West