Tweet
After seeing both of last year's comeback series, it seemed inevitable that one would "come back" and watch the new series on BBC One. Just forty-four hours into 2024 and new series are already beginning, just one day after celebrating Big Ben's bongs and getting optimistic over the year ahead from Archbishop Justin Welby. Tuesday 2nd January is more "back to normal" than 20 or 30 years ago, and at least Scotland has one more day of New Year celebrations before they return. Half a century after its namesake won the Eurovision Song Contest (and its winning nation will host it in May), we return to the wayward place of education. Here for the next eight weeks, our 21st century Grange Hill-on-acid returns in a primetime slot, with episode one having competition from Coronation Street, outside its regular day's transmission due to football happening later this week. Speaking of Corrie, we get to see former alumnus Angela Griffin return as the Head, just one day after listening to her Rewinds Mix show on BBC Radio 2 during the early hours of New Year's Day; listening as a direct result of it following Michelle Visage's "either side of Big Ben" fabulous New Year's Eve party. A lot of last year's cast return, including Scarlett Thomas as Izzy Charles; a character in which I commented around this time last year that within the first year of our new King's reign, it was so ironic that Waterloo Road both had characters called "King" and "Charles". I assume that it was non-intentional.
I almost didn't quite know where to look; what with all these short skirts worn by the female pupils I thought that I was watching a rerun of the 1990s series Band of Gold. Even now, almost 30 years on, it did make me wonder how on earth they were allowed to get away with that, and one needn't imagine passers-by getting almost the wrong idea as they walked to and from school each day. When I was in "the system" myself, most of the girls wore trousers, and one cannot be surprised, for anything above knee-length merited McClusky-esque action and sanctions from the powers that be, and that would go all the way to the school governors if need be. Girls were only allowed to wear trousers in the late 1980s before I started there. It just feels to me how liberalised or even liberated school uniform has been since the mid 1990s, and next month marks 30 years since I hung up my own school uniform; including the black trousers, if you remember the thread that started five years ago about it being 25 years since I left school. (Sadly, the very last teacher who I saw on that final afternoon at school before I had took "voluntary leave" as I was so close to nervous breakdown territory, had passed away in spring 2023).
One of the main actresses which stood out to me was Summer Bird; a name which I thought sounded like a racehorse, and lo and behold, looking at Wikipedia, I was correct. There was indeed an American Thoroughbred racehorse with that name who was born in 2006 (which could have been close to the actress' own year of birth) and the equine had sadly passed away in 2013. I don't think that she was named after the horse. Bird makes her series entrance as Tonya Walters; someone who has long strawberry blonde hair, if not a longer skirt to match it with, and she reminds me of the actress Emily Aston of the Aston clan from when she was Tracy Barlow-tryout Becky Palmer in Coronation Street in the mid 1990s. Here she is inside a non-Alf Roberts local corner shop attempting to shoplift, and she probably doesn't know the different between Open All Hours and Supermarket Sweep (i.e. get the goodies for nothing). I cannot remember any female pupil looking or dressing like that in my day; and if they did, one would think of that being a reward for turning up for school that day. I wouldn't mind her autograph if I needed to contact one of the two main production companies that make the show - I like her as a character...
Every school seems to have its very own Stacey, Stacy, or Stacie on its roll; (my class had a few of them over the years). Staceys are not really like the Karens that we all know and almost love. Waterloo Road's very own Stacey happens to be played by Tilly Amartey, knowingly Stacey "Stace" Neville, portrayed as being the Leader of the Pack. An attempt to do a PSHE or Citizenship lesson almost goes to pot, and it makes one actually wonder what will come of these youngsters in five or ten years time had this been reality: road-sweeping or even worse, using a a "Gonch's groper" aka a litter picker in order to pick up Walkers Crisps packets from the local pavements? What about stacking shelves in Tesco? Or even better, a PGCE to see what education is actually like on the other side of the fence? I know that my educational establishment had ruined me due to a lack of safeguarding, and one wonders how I would have coped had I been a Waterloo Road pupil? I know that it is a drama series but, one can imagine.
Every school seems to have its very own Stacey, Stacy, or Stacie on its roll; (my class had a few of them over the years). Staceys are not really like the Karens that we all know and almost love. Waterloo Road's very own Stacey happens to be played by Tilly Amartey, knowingly Stacey "Stace" Neville, portrayed as being the Leader of the Pack. An attempt to do a PSHE or Citizenship lesson almost goes to pot, and it makes one wonder what will come of these youngsters in five or ten years time had this been reality. A nod goes to Samia Choldary played by Priyashasha Kumari who stands out too; she was referred to as Sam in the episode and so I thought that it was short for Samantha. I mentioned a few months ago in the actors getting into character thread that this makes things like this so fascinating to watch; how different are they from the people who play them? I assume that the actors playing the young characters are probably three years older than their character counterparts, hence the "grown up" and advanced feel that the characters are, a la Hollyoaks and Happy Days. This is what sets it apart from precursors like Grange Hill, be it the fact that the Hill would never have been in a peak-time slot of 8.00 pm.
I will tune in next week and every week for the next seven weeks at least. I just hope that it won't be "demoted" to BBC Three territory as I believe that it deserves better than this. I assume that the series does not have an Educational Adviser just like other school-based series, due to its drama and non-real tenure, and no Education Reform Act 1988 to fall back on either. I have heard of St Trinian's but this is almost ridiculous; it's a great modern spin on it though; almost better than both of last year's series.
I almost didn't quite know where to look; what with all these short skirts worn by the female pupils I thought that I was watching a rerun of the 1990s series Band of Gold. Even now, almost 30 years on, it did make me wonder how on earth they were allowed to get away with that, and one needn't imagine passers-by getting almost the wrong idea as they walked to and from school each day. When I was in "the system" myself, most of the girls wore trousers, and one cannot be surprised, for anything above knee-length merited McClusky-esque action and sanctions from the powers that be, and that would go all the way to the school governors if need be. Girls were only allowed to wear trousers in the late 1980s before I started there. It just feels to me how liberalised or even liberated school uniform has been since the mid 1990s, and next month marks 30 years since I hung up my own school uniform; including the black trousers, if you remember the thread that started five years ago about it being 25 years since I left school. (Sadly, the very last teacher who I saw on that final afternoon at school before I had took "voluntary leave" as I was so close to nervous breakdown territory, had passed away in spring 2023).
One of the main actresses which stood out to me was Summer Bird; a name which I thought sounded like a racehorse, and lo and behold, looking at Wikipedia, I was correct. There was indeed an American Thoroughbred racehorse with that name who was born in 2006 (which could have been close to the actress' own year of birth) and the equine had sadly passed away in 2013. I don't think that she was named after the horse. Bird makes her series entrance as Tonya Walters; someone who has long strawberry blonde hair, if not a longer skirt to match it with, and she reminds me of the actress Emily Aston of the Aston clan from when she was Tracy Barlow-tryout Becky Palmer in Coronation Street in the mid 1990s. Here she is inside a non-Alf Roberts local corner shop attempting to shoplift, and she probably doesn't know the different between Open All Hours and Supermarket Sweep (i.e. get the goodies for nothing). I cannot remember any female pupil looking or dressing like that in my day; and if they did, one would think of that being a reward for turning up for school that day. I wouldn't mind her autograph if I needed to contact one of the two main production companies that make the show - I like her as a character...
Every school seems to have its very own Stacey, Stacy, or Stacie on its roll; (my class had a few of them over the years). Staceys are not really like the Karens that we all know and almost love. Waterloo Road's very own Stacey happens to be played by Tilly Amartey, knowingly Stacey "Stace" Neville, portrayed as being the Leader of the Pack. An attempt to do a PSHE or Citizenship lesson almost goes to pot, and it makes one actually wonder what will come of these youngsters in five or ten years time had this been reality: road-sweeping or even worse, using a a "Gonch's groper" aka a litter picker in order to pick up Walkers Crisps packets from the local pavements? What about stacking shelves in Tesco? Or even better, a PGCE to see what education is actually like on the other side of the fence? I know that my educational establishment had ruined me due to a lack of safeguarding, and one wonders how I would have coped had I been a Waterloo Road pupil? I know that it is a drama series but, one can imagine.
Every school seems to have its very own Stacey, Stacy, or Stacie on its roll; (my class had a few of them over the years). Staceys are not really like the Karens that we all know and almost love. Waterloo Road's very own Stacey happens to be played by Tilly Amartey, knowingly Stacey "Stace" Neville, portrayed as being the Leader of the Pack. An attempt to do a PSHE or Citizenship lesson almost goes to pot, and it makes one wonder what will come of these youngsters in five or ten years time had this been reality. A nod goes to Samia Choldary played by Priyashasha Kumari who stands out too; she was referred to as Sam in the episode and so I thought that it was short for Samantha. I mentioned a few months ago in the actors getting into character thread that this makes things like this so fascinating to watch; how different are they from the people who play them? I assume that the actors playing the young characters are probably three years older than their character counterparts, hence the "grown up" and advanced feel that the characters are, a la Hollyoaks and Happy Days. This is what sets it apart from precursors like Grange Hill, be it the fact that the Hill would never have been in a peak-time slot of 8.00 pm.
I will tune in next week and every week for the next seven weeks at least. I just hope that it won't be "demoted" to BBC Three territory as I believe that it deserves better than this. I assume that the series does not have an Educational Adviser just like other school-based series, due to its drama and non-real tenure, and no Education Reform Act 1988 to fall back on either. I have heard of St Trinian's but this is almost ridiculous; it's a great modern spin on it though; almost better than both of last year's series.
Comment