Grange Hill | |
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2008 titles
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Created by | Phil Redmond |
Starring | See below |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of series | 31 |
No. of episodes | 601 + 2 specials (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Camera setup |
Multiple camera (1978–98) Single camera (1999–2008) |
Running time | 25 minutes |
Release | |
Original network |
BBC One CBBC |
Original release | 8 February 1978 | – 15 September 2008
Chronology | |
Related shows | Tucker's Luck (1983–85) |
External links | |
Website |
Grange Hill is a British television children's drama series originally made by the BBC. The show began its run on 8 February 1978 on BBC1, and was one of the longest-running programmes on British television when it ended its run on September 15, 2008. 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.
After 30 years, the show was cancelled in 2008 as it was felt by the BBC that the series had run its course.
The drama was centred on the fictional comprehensive school of Grange Hill in the (equally fictitious) North London borough of "Northam" (although when filming moved to Liverpool in 2003, the school ceased to have any specifically named location), and followed the lives of its students as they progressed through school. The series was originally to have 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).
Grange Hill was originally conceived by ATV 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 children's drama executive Anna Home commissioned an initial series of nine episodes in a trial run, the first being broadcast on 8 February 1978.