Lisa York

Grange Hill is a British children's television drama series, originally produced by the BBC and portraying life in a typical comprehensive school.

Grange Hill was originally conceived by ATV writer Phil Redmond, who first approached various television companies with the idea in 1975, unsuccessfully.

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 on 15 September 2008 after 31 series.

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.

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.

From the start, the series sparked controversy over its realistic, gritty portrayal of school life, which differed from the idealised portrayals of earlier school dramas.

Redmond has said that he was not fully 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 certain elements down.

Grange Hill's highest-profile period was undoubtedly the mid- to late 1980s.

One of the most famous storylines during this time was that of Zammo McGuire (played by Lee MacDonald) and his addiction to heroin.

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.

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 Park is an area of St. Helens, Merseyside, where Redmond once lived.

During his time at the school (1985–89) Gonch took part in many moneymaking schemes, most of which were unsuccessful.

There was a comedic element to the duo's relationship that worked well with viewers.

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.

Among the show's other favourite characters during this period were Gonch and Hollo, played by John Holmes (also credited as John McMahon) and Bradley Sheppard.

During the 1990s, Grange Hill did not receive the same media attention that it had had just a few years before.

The teachers were now equals in the narrative, with their personal lives taking up almost as much time as those of the pupils.

In the 1990s Grange Hill was repeated in full on digital satellite and cable channel UK Gold, which broadcast the late 1970s and early 80s episodes of the show.

Interest in Grange Hill was 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 classmate.

Beginning on 4 April 1993, in celebration of the programme's 15th anniversary, the first fifteen series of Grange Hill were repeated during Children's BBC's Sunday (and later, Saturday) morning slots on BBC1 and BBC2.

In 1994, two characters were introduced with disabilities: Denny Roberts (Lisa Hammond), who had dwarfism, and Rachel Burns (Francesca Martinez), who had cerebral palsy.

Both characters were presented as "one of the gang" and hated being accorded any special treatment because of their circumstances.

In 1998, it reappeared on sister channel UK Gold Classics, which was a digital-only channel showing programmes previously aired on UK Gold, and Grange Hill was part of its schedule.

The repeats ended with Series 16 in 1999.

The channel lasted only six months, however, before becoming UK Gold 2 in April 1999.

By 2001, the series was almost entirely issue-led and the decision to tackle the subject of rape upset some parents.

This prompted the BFI's 2002 publication The Hill And Beyond to comment that Grange Hill had perhaps become politically correct.

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 had been killed after slipping and falling out of the window of a burning storeroom in the school.

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 that a film of Grange Hill was to be released in late 2007 focusing on the lives of former pupils.

There was silence on the project for 15 years, until it was announced in January 2022 that Redmond had written the script and was looking to start casting.

Series 31 returned to BBC1 after the 2007 series was shown exclusively on the CBBC Channel.

The show was cancelled in 2008, having run every year for 30 years.

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.

As well as dealing with school-related issues such as bullying, learning difficulties, teacher-pupil relationships and conflicts, Grange Hill "broke new ground over the years, with the kind of hard-hitting storylines not usually seen in children's dramas", such as racism, drugs (e.g. Zammo McGuire's heroin addiction, LSD), teenage pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, homosexuality, knife crime, homelessness, rape/sexual assault, mental illness (e.g. bipolar disorder), divorce, cancer (e.g. leukaemia), gun crime, child abuse, alcoholism and death.

Grange Hill returned on 14 April 2008 with its final series, including a return of the original theme music.

In 2019, Redmond spoke about possibly reviving the show and dealing with current social issues.