Mid-Term Report

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A candid, insightful and humorous memoir from the creator of Grange Hill, Brookside and Hollyoaks. TITLE SEQUENCE: Lancashire, just outside Liverpool. Camera high to show the swirling streets of a post-war council estate. It swoops lower across the neat privet hedges and gardens, front and back. Past the grandfatherly figure pushing a mechanical lawn mower. Through the open door of the scullery with bathroom attached. Through the living room past the assembled aunts and cousins. No men in sight. Up two flights of stairs to an attic room. The midwife turns. The baby cries. It’s a boy … And so began my life. It was a normal beginning, typical of its time. But the lessons Phil Redmond learned during his modest upbringing in Huyton, Merseyside - and at his comprehensive school a bus ride away - would lead him to create three of Britain’s longest-running and most popular television dramas: Grange Hill, Brookside and Hollyoaks. Over the past thirty-five years, Phil’s groundbreaking programmes have gripped and entertained audiences of millions, and made household names of countless characters, from Tucker Jenkins and Gripper Stebson to Tony Hutchinson and Ruth Osborne, beside Barry Grant and Jimmy Corkhill - not to mention casting a certain Royle couple more than fifteen years before the BBC caught up. Known at various times as ‘a TV Genius’, ‘the UK’s only hyphenate’ and a ‘long-haired git from Liverpool’, Phil is one of Britain’s most influential media personalities, whose work is an inspiration to viewers, media students and entrepreneurs alike. His innovative, pioneering approach has brought him numerous fans and accolades - along with almost as many complaints from the television regulators. In Mid-Term Report, Phil retraces the roller coaster journey which took him from growing up on a housing estate to buying one, from comprehensive school dinners to a CBE and lunch with the Queen, describing with candour, insight and humour the unforgettable lessons that he’s learnt, and taught, along the way.

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Phil Redmond CBE is a well-known television producer and screenwriter. He grew up in Huyton and attended St Kevin's Comprehensive School before gaining a Social Studies Degree from Liverpool University. He began writing scripts for the TV sitcoms such as The Squirrels before using his own experience of comprehensive schools to come up with the idea for Grange Hill. The programme was aired on BBC One from 1978 - 2008 and dealt with many of the challenges facing teenagers at high school. Redmond went on to create the soap Brookside, which was based around the lives of the residents of Brookside Close, Liverpool, and was aired on Channel 4 between 1982 and 2003. Redmond also developed the teen soap Hollyoaks which is now one of the most established soap operas on UK television. Redmond was awarded a CBE in 2004 in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to drama.