Grange Hill

Did You Know?

• 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).
• Cast member Laura Sadler, who was heavily involved in a knife crime 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.
• Series 29 was first broadcast on the digital CBBC Channel in the autumn of 2005, with a BBC One screening the following spring.

Series history

Phil Redmond originally conceived Grange Hill in 1975, approaching various television companies without success. In 1976 he sold the idea to the BBC, and children's drama executive Anna Home commissioned an initial trial run of nine episodes, the first broadcast on 8 February 1978. From the start the series sparked controversy for its realistic, gritty portrayal of school life, which differed from earlier idealised school dramas. Redmond has said he was not fully able to push boundaries until later series; he was summoned to lunch by BBC bosses and forced to agree that there would be no further series unless he toned certain elements down.

The programme's highest-profile period was the mid- to late 1980s. One of the most famous storylines during this time was Zammo McGuire's heroin addiction, played by Lee MacDonald, which ran over two series (1986–87) and focused on Zammo's descent into drugs and its strain on his relationships with girlfriend Jackie and friend Kevin. Other favourite characters included Gonch and Hollo, played by John Holmes (also credited as John McMahon) and Bradley Sheppard; Gonch took part in many moneymaking schemes, most unsuccessful.

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 English Patient in 1996. During the 1990s the series did not receive the same media attention. Teachers became equals in the narrative, with their personal lives taking up almost as much time as those of the pupils. In 1994 two characters with disabilities were introduced: Denny Roberts (Lisa Hammond), who had dwarfism, and Rachel Burns (Francesca Martinez), who had cerebral palsy; both were presented as 'one of the gang' and hated special treatment. The BFI's 2002 publication The Hill And Beyond commented that Grange Hill had perhaps become politically correct.

Production history

For its first quarter-century, the BBC produced Grange Hill itself, after which Mersey TV—the company founded by Redmond and later known as Lime Pictures—took over as an independent producer, which also explains why the show moved production sites. The show originally shot its exterior and some interior scenes at actual London schools. Kingsbury High School in northwest London served as the setting for the first two series. Starting with series 3 in 1980, exterior filming relocated to Willesden High School (now Harris Lowe Academy) in Willesden Green, a school that looked much like Kingsbury and sat in a residential part of the city.

In 1981, the production moved to Holborn College (now Fulham Preparatory School) on Greyhound Road in Hammersmith. This school had a very different appearance from the previous two and was located in a more built-up area of London. Holborn College remained on screen the longest of all the real schools, until 1985. Interior scenes were filmed at BBC Television Centre in London through 1985.

That same year, production moved to the former ATV studios in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, which the BBC had bought the year before. These studios, now called BBC Elstree Centre, provided the location for some exterior filming from series 8 onward, using the closed Elstree set. A 1960s office block called Neptune House on the site doubled as the school’s lower school. To explain the change on screen, a detailed storyline was created where Grange Hill merged with rival schools Brookdale and Rodney Bennett to become a single new Grange Hill.

By series 8, the merger was complete, and the school operated on two sites: the former Rodney Bennett building (Neptune House) became the lower school, while the original Grange Hill building (still Holborn College) was the upper school. In the 1989 series, St Audrey’s School in Hatfield also stood in for Grange Hill alongside Neptune House. After a fire in series 9 condemned the upper school building, production moved entirely to Elstree, including studio work.

At that time, Grange Hill was produced as an outside broadcast, just like its sister show EastEnders. From 1999 onward, new producer Diana Kyle shifted filming to a single-camera format.

Title sequence and theme music

From its debut in 1978 through 1987, Grange Hill opened with a comic-book style title sequence and the tune "Chicken Man" by Alan Hawkshaw. The following two years saw a shift to still images on various topics, paired with a deeper, bass-heavy version of the same theme. Between 1990 and 1993, the titles adopted a grainy, CCTV-like look, showing students and staff arriving at school, and introduced a new, more contemporary theme composed by Peter Moss.

From 1994 until 2000, the opening featured pupils engaged in school subjects like music, chemistry, PE, and food technology. When the show began broadcasting in widescreen in 2001, a more colorful sequence appeared, with students interacting with the logo; for the first time since 1990, the theme was trimmed slightly shorter. This version lasted two years. For the 2003 series only, the titles were updated to reflect the show's move to Liverpool, as the previous footage had shown the old Elstree building; both the visuals and theme were shortened again.

From 2004 to 2007, the opening took on a video-game style, and the Moss theme was cut down to about 12 seconds. This marked the first time since 1989 that live-action footage was absent. For the 30th anniversary and final series in 2008, an abbreviated version of the original "Chicken Man" returned, and the titles featured cartoon pupils and staff revisiting topics from earlier seasons. Grange Hill was the first program to use "Chicken Man" as its theme; the quiz show Give Us a Clue followed from 1979 to 1982, employing a less dynamic custom arrangement.

The final four notes of the original theme were heard when Brookside, another series by creator Phil Redmond, aired its last episode in November 2003.

Home media

The early home video releases of Grange Hill’s first two series were heavily edited. To fit the shorter runtimes of early VHS and laserdiscs, several storylines were cut. The cover of the series 1 release used a cast photo from series 3, meaning some children pictured don’t actually appear in that series. The series 2 cover, however, used a cast photo from the correct year.

These abridged versions also appeared on Betamax and Video 2000. For the show’s 30th anniversary in 2007, 2 Entertain released two DVD box sets covering the first four series. Both were rated PG, lacked subtitles, presented episodes in their original 4:3 aspect ratio, and included a booklet with episode details. Some episodes had pop music removed due to clearance issues, and studio video footage was filmized.

In 2018, Eureka Entertainment took over the DVD rights. They released series five and six in November 2018, series seven and eight (plus the 1981 Christmas Special) in November 2019, and series nine and ten (plus the 1985 Christmas Special) in October 2020. In 2021, Eureka confirmed no further series would be released on DVD. Streaming arrived in January 2021 when BritBox added the first four series.

Subsequent series were added over the next few years, with the 1985 Christmas Special appearing in November 2022. However, in September 2025, series 8 to 13 were removed from ITVX for legal reasons, followed shortly by series 7 and 14 to 28. This left only series 1 through 6 available. Since series 11 and beyond have never had an official DVD release, the show is once again largely unavailable.