Hollyoaks and Grange Hill creator says courage has gone out of broadcasting
TV writer Sir Phil Redmond said social media is the ‘big issue’ children are facing nowadays.
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Your support makes all the difference.Soap supremo Sir Phil Redmond says that “courage has gone out of broadcasting” in recent years, and suggested that TV watchdog rules should be broken more often.
TV writer Sir Phil, who created Hollyoaks, Grange Hill and Brookside, pushed for future schools-set soaps to be more gritty, and said social media is the “big issue” children are facing nowadays.
Sir Phil told BBC Radio’s 4 Today programme: “I think the problem is, is that the courage has gone out of broadcasting really, and there’s just too much risk aversion.
“There is a place for something like Grange Hill, and from my career, I always found that the harder you made the storyline, the more you upset the regulators, but the more the audience appreciated it, because the audience live these issues, and what they want to see is their own life put on screen as realistically as possible.”
Sir Phil also said that to make a programme such as Grange Hill you have to have TV producers with real “life experience”, such as growing up in a working-class background.
He added: “I think at the moment, we’ve got too many programmes being made by people who just want to be in telly, people who sort of, they want to come into the media because they think it’s cool.
“And when I was looking at trying to find writers for all the shows, my first question is, ‘what do you want to write about?’. And they’d say, ‘I’ll write anything, you tell me what to write’. (I would reply) ‘I don’t want to tell you. I want you to tell me’.”
When asked by the guest editor, former chancellor Sajid Javid, what he would tackle today, Sir Phil said: “I think the big issue I think you’d want to tackle is the impact of social media.
“There’s no counterpoint to that, and that’s what Grange Hill used to offer. It didn’t matter what the issue was… Grange Hill would always offer some solution or some way to go and ask somebody about this issue, but at the end of it, it’s basically, you’re not on your own.”
Chairman of Ofcom Lord Michael Grade appeared to agree with the viewpoint of Sir Phil that TV should challenge regulators more.
Lord Grade said there was “absolutely no harm” in upsetting Ofcom, and praised Grange Hill for not being “preachy at all”.
He also said: “This was an amazing, amazing show. It changed television in more ways than I think people realise. Prior to Grange Hill, life was (like the world of children’s author) Enid Blyton, gentle comedy, there was (school comedy) Please Sir! on ITV, which was brilliant, but very gentle, it didn’t really deal with the angst of growing up.
“Coronation Street was fluffy and lovely and warm and cosy, and then along came Grange Hill, (about) the anxiety as you go through growing up, there it was in the raw.”
The series, about life in a London comprehensive school, ran from 1978 to 2008.
It made headlines for its gritty social realism, tackling issues such as racism, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, mental illness and HIV and Aids, and made stars of cast members including Lee MacDonald, who played Zammo McGuire, and Todd Carty, who played Tucker Jenkins.
In 2022, creator Sir Phil spoke about the show returning as a film.