Grange Hill reboot: why creator Phil Redmond wants original TV series cast for movie - what we know so far

Grange Hill is going to return as a movie, creator Phil Redmond has revealed.

Redmond, who also created Hollyoaks and Brookside, told the Guardian recently that he’s working on a movie version of the popular school set television series.

Here’s everything you need to know about the upcoming Grange Hill movie.

What is the Grange Hill movie going to be about?

The Grange Hill movie will follow a new group of students, and look at contemporary issues in education, society, and so on.

The film will explore the role of schools within communities, and in particular “superschool” initiatives. Redmond explained that “it’s decided the school is costing too much to maintain so it should be knocked down, the land sold and proceeds used to build a new one and replenish local coffers”.

It will also be set in a post-covid Britain, and explore how children deal with feelings of grief after many have lost relatives during the pandemic.

What made Phil Redmond want to bring back Grange Hill?

Redmond – who first created Grange Hill in 1978 – has spent the past decade and a half as a media studies professor at Liverpool John Moores university.

He was inspired to return to the world of Grange Hill after reading, and disagreeing with, a newspaper article speculating about where the characters might be now.

That prompted him to start thinking about what the Grange Hill characters would actually be doing now, and last February he began working on the script for a Grange Hill movie.

Who is going to be in it?

So far, no one – at the moment the Grange Hill movie is only just coming to the end of the scripting stage, with casting a while away yet.

However, Redmond said that he hopes a number of former Grange Hill stars will return to play their former characters again (making it more of a revival than a reboot, technically) as parents and even grandparents of the new Grange Hill students.

When did Grange Hill originally air?

Grange Hill originally ran from February 1978 to September 2008.

Will Ant and Dec be in the Grange Hill movie?

Well, maybe, but it’s unlikely. Ant and Dec weren’t in Grange Hill, they were on Byker Grove back when they were called PJ and Duncan.

Why is it going to be a movie and not a TV show?

According to Redmond, television is much less ambitious now, and wouldn’t accommodate the return of Grange Hill.

He also suggested the show would be too parochial for a streaming service like Netflix.

When is it going to be released?

According to the Guardian article, the Grange Hill movie is due for release at the end of 2022 (though whether it reaches that target is perhaps another question).

A film was first announced in 2006, due for release in 2007, though it didn’t work out in the end.

Where can I watch the original Grange Hill?

You can watch Grange Hill on Britbox, where the first nine seasons are available to stream, or buy individual seasons via Amazon Prime.

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