First four series of Grange Hill now on Britbox

[Fambo Number Mive]

Just rewatching them now and I was thinking how good Mr Mitchell is. Sense of humour, doesn't take any crap from his form but also clearly cares about them and enjoys teaching them. Able to have a joke with them but not patronise them.

Him and Mr Bronson are probably the two best teacher characters in Grance Hill.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

I'll always have a soft spot for Guardian-reading Trotskyite Scruffy McGuffy.

[jamiefairlie]

Everything up to the end of series 6 (the save McGuffy protest) was gold. Diminishing returns after that.

[Gulftastic]

Everything up to the end of series 6 (the save McGuffy protest) is our gold. Diminishing returns after that.

The expulsion of Gripper marks the downturn for me. The next big bully was Imelda who was not in his league, then after she left, it was a gang running round the Hill dressed in American Football kit.

[Custard]

The whole Danny Kendall dies then apparently starts haunting the school storyline traumatised me as a kid

I remember some of the kids went there one night, expecting him to appear. It was fucking terrifying

28 I was, etc

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Was Mr Bronson an actual psychopath? An impeccable performance from the great Michael Sheard. A lesser actor would've played Bronson as a pantomime villain, but Sheard's simmering intensity, his barely contained fury, was genuinely terrifying.

[Replies From View]

I was born in 1979 so my era of Grange Hill was far later than the prime years.  I remember the tail-end of the Chicken Man theme tune years, but when everyone reckons it had already gone to shit ages ago, with the new theme tune etc, that's what I grew up with.

Thankfully the Sunday morning repeats of the classic era put me in the right place.  I think that's when the first series of TMWRNJ was happening as well, so Sunday morning TV was a bit of a halcyon time for a while.  The Secret World of Alex Mack, some Crystal Maze repeats... brilliant.

My memory of those Sunday morning repeats says that it went off the boil with the Gonch years, though I did enjoy him and his gang's stupid antics, shrewdly taking advantage of other pupils' desire for warm toast, and what I recall was a full season involving a donkey stowed in the caretaker's shed.

But around the same time, or a bit later, there was an awful hip-hop subplot for an entire season, and it was one of those times where the script would have said EXCELLENT HIP-HOP TAKES PLACE IN THIS SCENE, with the teachers and kids all going 'wow this is so awesome, there is such talent on display' but it was awful hip-hop obviously composed by a bald middle-aged man who had never heard of hip-hop before being commissioned.  Like The Orange Organics in Pugwall.  It was when they briefly retained the Chicken Man theme but it was a fucked up version they used, and they had new visuals for it that weren't very good.

So that's when it was deteriorating beyond repair in my view.  They soon had what felt like an entirely new cast because they started focusing on the first years we'd never seen before, and that's when the new theme tune came in.  It felt like a bit of a reboot.

[jamiefairlie]

The expulsion of Gripper marks the downturn for me. The next big bully was Imelda who was not in his league, then after she left, it was a gang running round the Hill dressed in American Football kit.

Yeah that was series 6. The Gripper storyline was really excellent drama.

[Replies From View]

Which season had the death at the bottom of the pool?  Because one of the kids swam down unattended and just stopped there.




That was pretty good drama.  It was like a public information film except it was unclear what you were specifically meant to avoid doing underwater.  The lesson I learned was to immediately shit myself in the deep end.  And you know what?  Works a treat.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

a full season involving a donkey stowed in the caretaker's shed.

I'm four years older than you, but I still consider that secret donkey arc part of golden era Hill.

I don't remember the hip-hop years, I gave up after the aforementioned gang of rubbish school bullies started titting about in American football gear. It was no longer for me, my mind was on higher things.

[Replies From View]

I'm four years older than you, but I still consider that secret donkey arc part of golden era Hill.

I don't remember the hip-hop years, I gave up after the aforementioned gang of rubbish school bullies started titting about in American football gear. It was no longer for me, my mind was on higher things.

It was just one season they did the hip-hop, soon after the donkey arc and a bit before the brand new theme tune.  Two girls in their fourth or fifth year, or maybe sixth form, going "a hip-hip hippidy, hippidy hip; a hop-hop hoppidy, hoppidy hop" and everyone in the cast foreseeing an amazing career for these talented spirits.

I think the last episode of the season has them on stage as part of the last-day-of-school vibe.  Always loved those ones.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

I'm rapping, rapping, a rap-rap rapping.

I always loved what they would now call 'season finales' too. They usually involved a firm but fair teacher 'bopping' to whatever music the kids were playing.

Cheeky Oik: "Cor, sir, you're a smashing body-popper!"

Firm But Fair Teacher: "Alright, Cheeky Oik, that's quite enough of that."

Firm But Fair Teacher and Cheeky Oik share a warm, fleeting glance. Yes, they've been at loggerheads all year, but they like and respect each other really.

[Replies From View]

Oh yeah, they call themselves Fresh and Fly.  They appear in this episode (skip to 17 minutes, and their performance is dispersed over the scenes that follow):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1e9mDIar0I.  There are probably better examples but that was the first search result.

So that was season 11; the donkey arc and Danny Kendall's death were in season 10.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Oh yeah, they call themselves Fresh and Fly.  They appear in this episode (skip to 17 minutes, and their performance is dispersed over the scenes that follow):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1e9mDIar0I.  There are probably better examples but that was the first search result.

So that was season 11; the donkey arc and Danny Kendall's death were in season 10.

Incredible scenes.

[jamiefairlie]

Which season had the death at the bottom of the pool?  Because one of the kids swam down unattended and just stopped there.




That was pretty good drama.  It was like a public information film except it was unclear what you were specifically meant to avoid doing underwater.  The lesson I learned was to immediately shit myself in the deep end.  And you know what?  Works a treat.

That was series 7, the start of the decline.

[paruses]

Was it Justin who died in the pool or was he much earlier?

For a long time I thought the main American Football bully  was Mark "The Beast" The Chaser.

[jamiefairlie]

Nah, it was Jeremy (cousin of Jonah Jones). Little backstory there - the original script had Jonah instead of Jeremy but Lee Sparke who played Jonah didn't want to play that plot and left the series instead, leading to his sudden disappearance between series 6 & 7 and Jeremy's sudden arrival.

The kid who dies in series 4  was Antoni Karramanopolis.

[Replies From View]

Immensely surprised that the Zammo years are generally considered part of a decline in Grange Hill quality.  Is it all to do with the age you were when you saw it?  Or were the stories and characterisations actually getting worse by that point?

[jamiefairlie]

Stories getting more sensational, characters getting broader.

Zammo's first two years are part of the golden age and the decline was slow but steady so not immediately obvious at first.

[Gurke and Hare]

Immensely surprised that the Zammo years are generally considered part of a decline in Grange Hill quality.  Is it all to do with the age you were when you saw it?  Or were the stories and characterisations actually getting worse by that point?

I think how old you were is part of it. My older sister hated anything after the original lot weren't in it any more.

[Jockice]

I was born in 1979 so my era of Grange Hill was far later than the prime years.  I remember the tail-end of the Chicken Man theme tune years, but when everyone reckons it had already gone to shit ages ago, with the new theme tune etc, that's what I grew up with.

Well I was in the first year at secondary school when it started, so you can imagine the impact it had. I still think the Gripper finally getting expelled scene is one of the greatest moments in British dramatic history.. It was all downhill from there if you ask me even though I continued watching it for a while, even after I'd left school myself and started work but stopped probably circa 1990. Mauler McCall was a shit bully.

Incidentally my girlfriend (who was in the same class as me from the second till fifth years) wasn't allowed to watch it by her very middle-class parents. No wonder I never spoke to her at school.

[paruses]

I think how old you were is part of it. My older sister hated anything after the original lot weren't in it any more.

I remember being very frightened of Michael Doyle and Justin made me anxious with the way he was treated but I was a bit too young for it then. Was just about old enough for Tucker and Gripper et al. and grew into it. For me they were the peak years and obvs once my hormones kicked in I watched it for Georgina and to a lesser degree Cally (the one who went out with Michael Winner).

[smudge1971]

Booga Benson was the best villain. He looked feral.

[Jockice]

I'm rapping, rapping, a rap-rap rapping.

I always loved what they would now call 'season finales' too. They usually involved a firm but fair teacher 'bopping' to whatever music the kids were playing.

Cheeky Oik: "Cor, sir, you're a smashing body-popper!"

Firm But Fair Teacher: "Alright, Cheeky Oik, that's quite enough of that."

Firm But Fair Teacher and Cheeky Oik share a warm, fleeting glance. Yes, they've been at loggerheads all year, but they like and respect each other really.

Didn't Tucker sing a punky song about the teachers from the school stage at the end of one series, or have I just imagined that?

[petril]

Incredible scenes.

Kendall v Bronson was a work of art. like I was moving past the current GH at the time they started repeating it at the weekends from the start. that weird phase where they'd ditch the actual Saturday morning programme in summer and have like a deluxe broom cupboard on Saturdays. lie ins watching Ziggy Greaves, the donkey and everything were a good double bill preview before TMWRNJ.

strange place to be, the GH I remember best being the repeats of the really old stuff from before I was at school, instead of the traditional "when you were about 9-14" prime My Doctor type period

[Fambo Number Mive]

It would be good if Britbox put some more series of Grange Hill up. Would there be anything stopping them?

[Replies From View]

I grew up with Danny Kendall's version of the GH logo, and during the Sunday morning repeats I found the preceding SS logo quite distracting.  But the original is better, and once you settle into the prime years, Kendall's version of the logo jars.  The Kendall logo actually coincided with other updates that were coming up, like the change in the theme tune and probably other revamps, but I didn't appreciate that at the time.

[Replies From View]

It would be good if Britbox put some more series of Grange Hill up. Would there be anything stopping them?

It's weird; for years only seasons 1-4 could be bought on DVD, as well.

[Dead Soon]

Booga Benson was the best villain. He looked feral.

Yes. Gripper picked on his own size, at best, but Booga looked as though he'd just grin that mad fucking smile at you if you held him at knifepoint. Don't think him having that always present mate worked, though. Seems the sort that you couldn't safely be mates with, and the other guy didn't look mental enough.

[non capisco]

Started watching these because, y'know, lockdown, what the hell else am I gonna do? Britbox warns of racist language (three episodes in and none yet) but doesn't say anything about the high amount of belming featured so far. And that's just the teachers!

This first series is very watchable but obviously embryonic. When's classic bully Gripper Stebson show up? So far in the bullying stakes we've had Tucker's low level trouser hiding antics (his victim Justin Bennett such a convincing milksop that I started wondering whether the other kids bullied the actor on set) and an older girl gang led by proto-Priti Patel Jackie Raven. 1978 so I won't have seen these ones at all. My memory of even the repeats starts with Ro-land sacking off school to sit at home eating chocolate and watching Camberwick Green and a school disco where they're all in a circle singing along to Captain Sensible's 'Wot?', so '82, probably just after this Britbox selection cuts off, damnit.