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First four series of Grange Hill now on Britbox

Started by Fambo Number Mive, January 14, 2021, 06:29:16 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Replies From View

Quote from: non capisco on January 16, 2021, 12:42:24 PM
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!

Plus a bit dodgy that they're filming inside a school in the first place.  Bet half the kids don't even know it's going on!

Should have only filmed the teachers I reckon.  Had the children as simply off-camera voices, all trombonified like the teachers in The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show.

Gurke and Hare

I think Gripper comes in with the third series. The main cast would be in alternate school years, so the first series had Tucker and co in the first year (Year 7 now?) and then a couple of years later we saw the first intake of new pupils, Which was the year with Pogo Patterson, Duane Orpington, Claire Scott and Suzanne Ross - Gripper was in that year.

Jockice

Quote from: non capisco on January 16, 2021, 12:42:24 PM
an older girl gang led by proto-Priti Patel Jackie Raven.

Jackie Heron actually. I remember that especially well because there was a family just along the road from me at the same time with the same surname. They weren't bullies though and I ended up working with their dad. A fellow Scot.  He also got my football back for me after Fizz nicked it. Not the Coronation Street Fizz though. Another Fizz. The one in the year above me at school.

Gurke and Hare

Quote from: Replies From View on January 16, 2021, 11:21:32 AM
It's weird; for years only seasons 1-4 could be bought on DVD, as well.

When did the BBC start farming things out to independent producers? Did production maybe switch to Mersey Television after the first four series?

Jockice


non capisco

Quote from: Jockice on January 16, 2021, 01:51:02 PM
Jackie Heron actually.

Oops, yeah. Only watched that last night and all.
*Tucker belms and calls non capisco "stoopid"*

Jockice

Jackie Raven sounds more like a bully's name though.

Fambo Number Mive

I didn't go to a comprehensive school in London - how realistic was Grange Hill? I remember when it got all naff and had characters like Togger and Tugger or something in series 26, but what about earlier series?

Obviously there was no swearing or "obscene daubings" in Grange Hill.

Replies From View

Quote from: Fambo Number Mive on January 16, 2021, 02:54:12 PM
I didn't go to a comprehensive school in London - how realistic was Grange Hill? I remember when it got all naff and had characters like Togger and Tugger or something in series 26, but what about earlier series?

Obviously there was no swearing or "obscene daubings" in Grange Hill.

Am I mistaken in thinking that in the later years it wasn't set in London anymore?  Or was it simply that it was filmed elsewhere?

Mersey TV took it over in 2003 and production moved to Liverpool until the end, but I think it was still 'London' (but my memory is hazy).


Gurke and Hare

I don't think it was anywhere geographically specific, the accents were from all over the place.

Gulftastic

Quote from: smudge1971 on January 15, 2021, 10:36:31 AM
Booga Benson was the best villain. He looked feral.

I remember being terrified when Booga and his henchman chased Tucker through the deserted school to give him a kicking.

jamiefairlie

Quote from: Jockice on January 15, 2021, 02:13:36 PM
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?
.

81 Christmas special, the song was also about McGuffy.

jamiefairlie

Quote from: Fambo Number Mive on January 16, 2021, 02:54:12 PM
I didn't go to a comprehensive school in London - how realistic was Grange Hill? I remember when it got all naff and had characters like Togger and Tugger or something in series 26, but what about earlier series?

Obviously there was no swearing or "obscene daubings" in Grange Hill.

It was very close to my contemporary experience of comprehensive school in Glasgow, so probably similar across the UK

jamiefairlie

Quote from: Gurke and Hare on January 16, 2021, 01:48:18 PM
I think Gripper comes in with the third series. The main cast would be in alternate school years, so the first series had Tucker and co in the first year (Year 7 now?) and then a couple of years later we saw the first intake of new pupils, Which was the year with Pogo Patterson, Duane Orpington, Claire Scott and Suzanne Ross - Gripper was in that year.

You omit the great character night of the long knives that occurred with that intake. A bunch were omitted after their first year and the likes of Claire Scott added.

Dead Soon

Quote from: jamiefairlie on January 16, 2021, 04:57:28 PM
You omit the great character night of the long knives that occurred with that intake. A bunch were omitted after their first year and the likes of Claire Scott added.

That always fucked me off. I get that child actors might have had commitment issues, fine, fair fucks, but don't replace their characters so abruptly as though they had never existed. What happened to Tracey Edwards, Duane? Do you not miss your childhood best friend? Happened to a few kids in Turkey's year too, outspoken ginger girl replaced by identikit character rings a bell.

Give a fuck with the teachers that this happened to, that makes contextual sense, teachers leaving and arriving mid term is a standard and the kids don't give fuck about bygone staff. But the kids, grief. This did nark me on my first watch, in all seriousness. However clunky, just explain the disappearances. Make them dead, if you will.

That typo remains.

pigamus

Quote from: Replies From View on January 16, 2021, 11:21:32 AM
It's weird; for years only seasons 1-4 could be bought on DVD, as well.

You get this a lot - it's the same with Casualty - the DVDs only go up to series 3. They don't sell as well as expected and they stop releasing them. It's very annoying.

Quote from: smudge1971 on January 15, 2021, 10:36:31 AM
Booga Benson was the best villain. He looked feral.

I found him scary, too, till he turned up soon after as the boy who turned into a donkey in the BBC's serialisation of Pinnochio.

They're still releasing the GH sets though - one was released late last year that finishes out the Zammo drug storyline and continues with the Bronson/Danny Kendall saga (Series 9/10).

Gulftastic

It was announced that there was going to be a drugs plot way before they revealed it Zammo with the problem. Weirdo Danny Kendall was introduced that series as a bit of a red herring.

Jockice

Quote from: Gulftastic on January 16, 2021, 09:15:58 PM
It was announced that there was going to be a drugs plot way before they revealed it Zammo with the problem. Weirdo Danny Kendall was introduced that series as a bit of a red herring.

I remember reading about that before it happeneed and the paper claimed t was 'an evil little Scouse kid who introduced the school to drugs. Nothing like a bit of stereotyping is there? I kept a very close watch on Ziggy Greaves because of that though

Gulftastic

Fair play to Ziggy though, he managed to get skagged up on Brookside

Jockice

Quote from: Dead Soon on January 16, 2021, 07:50:15 PM
That always fucked me off. I get that child actors might have had commitment issues, fine, fair fucks, but don't replace their characters so abruptly as though they had never existed. What happened to Tracey Edwards, Duane? Do you not miss your childhood best friend? Happened to a few kids in Turkey's year too, outspoken ginger girl replaced by identikit character rings a bell.

Give a fuck with the teachers that this happened to, that makes contextual sense, teachers leaving and arriving mid term is a standard and the kids don't give fuck about bygone staff. But the kids, grief. This did nark me on my first watch, in all seriousness. However clunky, just explain the disappearances. Make them dead, if you will.

That typo remains.

At my real school there were kids who just vanished and were never seen or mentioned again though. Dean Hunter, Catherine Barrett, Jackie Meeley,, Betty O'Shea...

non capisco

Quote from: Jockice on January 16, 2021, 09:47:42 PM
Dean Hunter, Catherine Barrett, Jackie Meeley,, Betty O'Shea...

We didn't start the fire! It was always burnin' since the world's been turnin'

Gurke and Hare

I watched the Zammo/drugs series a few years ago, and as an adult it's amazing how VERY OBVIOUSLY HE IS USING HEROIN.

Replies From View

Quote from: Gurke and Hare on January 16, 2021, 04:22:00 PM
I don't think it was anywhere geographically specific, the accents were from all over the place.

warning this programme contains racist undertones at some point after the third episode of series 1

jamiefairlie

warning: this programme may reflect real life and this may be upsetting for those who haven't experienced this.

shiftwork2

I was the perfect meat for Grange Hill, contemplating starting a deadbeat comprehensive school in 1983.  I remember the initial cast and the 'drama' feel to Redmond's first series.  There was the 'Great Grange Hill Debate' (and I haven't even looked that up) such was the notoriety of this series.  Memories of it growing in confidence and fleshing out a real world.  Might have to revisit.

Jockice

Quote from: jamiefairlie on January 16, 2021, 04:55:41 PM
It was very close to my contemporary experience of comprehensive school in Glasgow, so probably similar across the UK

It wasn't totally dissimilar, although I went to a Catholic place that had been an all-girls' school until the year before I started and was full of nuns.They were heads of both school sites and a few of them were teachers. But it had an intake of pupils from all the Catholic primary schools in the city, some of which weren't in the most salubrious areas. The place still had delusions of grandeur though, so it wasn't exactly Grange Hill, but it wasn't all that far off. I have mentioned that my girlfriend's pretty posh parents wouldn't allow her to watch it. And I'm sure they weren't the only ones. There were some real snobs there.

Replies From View

Remember when Zammo was all heroined-up on the floor of the toilets and the camera kept jump-cutting a bit closer and closer until it was up his nostrils?


Well they ruined it by having him come back the next week.  Should have died.