Grange Hill<\/a>. But this wasn\u2019t children\u2019s programming \u2013 it was primetime. High-school dramas are perennial because it\u2019s the ultimate shared experience. There tends to be a Waterloo Road in most UK towns, so the title had universality. It also worked with The Battle of Waterloo Road, our chaotic first episode. That anarchy remains a key component of the show.<\/p>\ndouble quotation markSuddenly I was being stopped in the street by teenagers<\/p>\n
It ran for 10 series but grew stale and got axed. Then, during Covid, old series suddenly did huge numbers on iPlayer. I think viewers missed that sense of community, and for a certain demographic, it was bigger than Strictly or Doctor Who during lockdown. The BBC asked me to reboot it and here I am, seven series and 70 hours of TV later.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hugely popular with young and diverse audiences. I think that\u2019s about people feeling seen and not patronised. We treat teachers like they\u2019re human and teenagers like they\u2019re adults. Teachers are grateful someone is telling the world how tough their jobs are. We do regular Zoom panels with educators to canvas opinion. Recently they told us we don\u2019t show enough sex between teachers. We\u2019ve introduced more staffroom affairs on the back of that.<\/p>\n
TV has the ability to open conversations at home. If suddenly a character viewers love is suffering the pain of endometriosis, they want to know more. Our plot about the plight of young carers led to questions in Parliament. Derbyshire Police linked to our grooming storyline from their website because it helped highlight the warning signs, and our storyline about coercive control got screened in schools across the north-west. It\u2019s public service broadcasting, but not in a po-faced way. Issue-led stuff is balanced with humour. Ann always said that every episode should make you laugh and cry.<\/p>\n
Danny Lewis, Shola Aku, Caz Williams, Kelly Jo Rafferty, Khalil \u2018Kai\u2019 Sharif and Samia Choudry Photograph: David Gennard\/BBC\/Wall to Wall\/Rope Ladder Fiction<\/p>\n
I went to Los Angeles to visit the set of an amazing show called East Los High, set within the Latino community. Despite living in the entertainment capital of the world, young people couldn\u2019t get jobs in the industry, so they crowdfunded their own show. It became a cult hit and ran for five seasons. That planted a seed in my mind, so we started an initiative called Rope Ladder Fiction to encourage new voices. We have trainee schemes across all departments and do outreach work around Greater Manchester. Too often we hear that TV and film are intimidating environments, but kids can come to Waterloo Road with its school setting and feel comfortable. It\u2019s the perfect training ground. One of our team, Laurie Kirkham, was an extra on the show when she was still at school. Now she\u2019s producing it.<\/p>\n
Considering the show\u2019s ups and downs, it\u2019s mad that it has run for 20 years. Because so many young people work on the show, we marked the anniversary with a prom, which was huge fun. When Ann sadly died last year, we named a character, Noel McManus, after her. He led the house band and there was a lovely moment when [co-creator] Eileen Gallagher got on stage to play tambourine. It felt celebratory of the whole two decades.<\/p>\n
Angela Griffin, actor and director<\/p>\n
It was always drummed into us that we weren\u2019t making Grange Hill: this might be set in a school but it\u2019s about the teachers as well as pupils, and the storylines are edgier and more adult.<\/p>\n
I started out playing Kim Campbell, the art teacher and head of pastoral care. She was in constant conflict with Andrew Treneman, played by Jamie Glover, the strict deputy head \u2013 naturally, they eventually fell in love. Kim thought every student was an individual. Her catchphrase was: \u201cOne size doesn\u2019t fit all.\u201d I based her on my old drama teacher.<\/p>\n
The show was a big success, pulling in 5 million viewers. I still get recognised most for Coronation Street, which is nuts because I left 25 years ago, but suddenly I was being stopped in the street by teenagers too. I left after five series, but then a decade later lockdown happened and the show found a whole new audience. The rekindled love for the show was nuts. Even my own teenage daughters were interested when their friends started saying: \u201cYour mum\u2019s Miss Campbell!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Naturally they fell in love\u2019 \u2026 Griffin with Jamie Glover as Andrew Treneman. Photograph: Helen Williams\/BBC\/Wall To Wall\/Rope Ladder Fiction<\/p>\n
I was surprised when Cameron approached me about coming back for the reboot in a very different guise: Kim was the new head teacher, so I visited schools and did lots of research. Not only was it a much more ordered\u200b job for her but, post-Covid, the landscape of schools had changed. Returning to see a new generation of pupils gave me goosebumps.<\/p>\n
What Waterloo Road does for the north of England, for working-class actors and for up-and-coming crew is huge. It\u2019s a massive breeding ground for talent outside London. Great names have come through its doors \u2013 Jodie Comer, Jenna Coleman, Phoebe Dynevor, Holliday Grainger \u2013 and I feel like they\u2019re all my children! Filming isn\u2019t as chaotic as you might think because it\u2019s a tight ship. I\u2019ve seen worse behaviour on adult shows.<\/p>\n
It tackles issues in an accessible way. I\u2019ve had handwritten letters from viewers who\u2019ve been deeply affected by episodes. Bullying storylines tend to resonate and people felt like Kim was their pastoral care teacher too. I strongly identified with Kelly Jo wrestling with her mixed-race identity. I felt fortunate that I got to both direct and be part of that story. It was an enormous moment for me when Cameron trusted me enough to start directing. It has utterly changed my life and career. As a northern, working-class woman of colour, I\u2019m the last person who\u2019s usually found behind the camera. Hopefully it shows people what\u2019s possible.<\/p>\n
In series one, it might have been physical bullying, drugs and alcohol; 20 years later, it\u2019s cyber-bullying, vapes and bloody energy drinks. The same problems affect young people today as they\u2019ve always done. There will always be a space for Waterloo Road.<\/p>\n
All episodes of Waterloo Road are available to watch on BBC iPlayer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cameron Roach, executive producer I was working on women\u2019s prison drama Bad Girls when the idea for Waterloo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-491321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}