Grange Hill To Be Axed

Grange Hill - officially the best children's TV show in which the theme tune went 'wah-wah-wah-waaaahh' while a surprised cartoon boy stared at a sausage - is to be axed after 30 years.

To any readers outside the UK, here's a bit of expo: Grange Hill was a high-school drama that was first broadcast in February 1978, and has since gone on to feature gritty storylines about bullying, pregnancy, alcohol abuse and even heroin addiction. Kind of like Sweet Valley High as reimagined by Ken Loach, then.

According to the BBC, though, Grange Hill just isn't speaking to the youth of today. The cheeky little youngsters of the modern era are too busy either forming gangs, playing Call Of Duty 4 online or claiming Pete Doherty to be a poet (only the particularly dim ones, mind) to tune into a long running TV favourite.

According to CBBC Controller Anne Gilchrist:

"The lives of children have changed a great deal since Grange Hill began and we owe it to them to reflect this. We have to not confuse our own nostalgia for something that we loved for something that children will want nowadays. We think we have got a lot of exciting new shows coming up that will please them and challenge them equally as well as Grange Hill did in the past."

Something which seems questionable for two reasons. Firstly, hecklerspray has a lot of nostalgia for genius late-80s kids sketch show Round The Bend, and can confidently say that - if it was brought back - the exploits of Psycho The Magician and The False Teeth From Outer Space would delight a whole generation anew the nation over.

Secondly: doesn't it seem like a depressing thought that teenagers wouldn't be able to 'identify' with Grange Hill (ostensibly a group of non-patronising screen characters dealing with issues that genuinely affect the audience at home)? Isn't it genuinely despairing that young adults would now have to turn to something like Skins as a reflection of their lives - a gaggle of whiny upper-middle-class catalogue models who perpetuate the uniquely British myth that getting pissed and shagging is apparently revolutionary, and not something human beings have been doing since the dawn of time? Yeah, yeah - we know that Skins isn't technically a show for kids. But tell us it's not being marketed as such. Go on. You'll be lying. 

Another odd comment comes from Jon East, head of Children's Drama at the BBC:

"For 30 years, Grange Hill has become a byword for realistic and contemporary children's drama. It's now time to apply what we've learned over the years to some of the new ideas we're exploring."  

Hmm. Sorry for hecklerspray to get on our high horse here - it won't happen often, promise - but shouldn't the BBC be developing and honing one of their flagship kids shows to move with the times, instead of simply abandoning it in favour of Mattel's All-Action Toy-Selling Half-Hour or whatever they're going to shove on in its place?

Ah, forget it. All just pipe dreams, eh? We'll have to resign ourselves to the fact that a generation will never know the glorious likes of Knightmare or The Lowdown.  While we're on the subject of 1980s kids television, though, we do have one more question we'd like to ask.

We'll let Elliot take it from here.

Oh - and then Simon. 

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BBC to shut gates on Grange Hill - BBC