The best laid plans of Phil

This past week saw the 40th anniversary of the broadcast of the first episode of Grange Hill the BBC's children's drama. Set in the titular school the show broke new ground in dealing with such subject as drug abuse and racism that would have been considered risque a couple of years before the show started for a programme aimed at a certain age range. Many well known actors got early roles on the show including Todd Carty, Susan Tully and Alex Kingston. Due to production being based in London the show was thought  to be set in London hence most of the voices heard were from London with the off exception like the Liverpudlian Ziggy Graves. Then in 2003 the BBC handed over production to series creator Phil Redmond who in the intervening years had created the long running C4 soap Brookside. One of the first things Redmond did was to move production to Liverpool and set Grange Hill in an non specific area of the country with a wide range of accents. However Redmond's plans were waylaid by British Child Employment Law which had the effect that Redmond had to cast Child actors from the surrounding area thereby the show cast now mostly had accents from the North West of England. Grange Hill came to an end in 2008 with the BBC saying that the show had run it's course. The final episode featured a guest appearance by Carty. Some of the sets built for Grange Hill for it's Liverpool move would be ended being used for Redmond's other show Hollyoaks. It is testament to the impact it had on a generation of kids that Grange Hill is still being talked about 10 years after it ended.