Byker Grove

BYKER GROVE
Made by: Zenith North
Shown on: BBC1
Years shown: 1989-present day
Theme tune: shouty kids chanting “Byker…Grove! Byker…Grove! Ooo Byker, Byker, down at Byker Grove! Yeah!”

As a native of the north-east, this Geordie drama series naturally has a special place in my heart, especially as it featured every significant place the area has to offer, although not my house as yet.

Created by Adele Rose and Andrea Wonfor, it followed the lives, loves and shop-lifting escapades of the teenagers at Byker Grove, a fortress-type youth club somewhere in Newcastle, run by gruff and bearded Geoff Keegan (local comedian, Billy Fane.) When it first hit screens in the post-Newsround slot, Julie (Lucy Walsh) had just moved to a new home, which she hated until she discovered ‘the Grove’ at the back of her street.

Significant and much-loved characters included frizzy ginge, Spuggy (Lyndyann Barrass), who went on a trip to the USA; her introspective bespectacled brother Fraser (John Jefferson); and sisters Nicola, Debbie and Jemma. Nicola (Jill Halfpenny) ran off to Kielder, of all places, with her rebel biker boyfriend, and Jemma (Nicola Ewart) was tragically electrocuted in a bizarre flood/television/old woman encounter. Debbie (Nicola Bell) had the dubious honour of going out with first PJ (Anthony McPartlin) and then Duncan (Declan Donnelly.) PJ took her out to a restaurant and couldn’t pay the bill, so they ended up doing the washing up, and he also thought it would be romantic for them to sleep together for the first time in a sleeping bag in the basement of the Grove. Debbie got her revenge when she accidentally blinded him during a paint-balling outing, and decided to go out with Duncan instead.

There was also the brother and sister pairing of Marcus (David Oliver, later Oliver Stone for some reason) and Amanda, rich kids who had just returned from South Africa. Amanda (Gemma Graham) got involved in drugs and alcohol, ended up being bundled out of a battered Datsun, and was the standard warning against teenage motherhood, as she struggled to bring up her newborn daughter. Every good right-on kids’ drama also has to cover homosexuality, and Byker Grove saw Noddy Fishwick (Brett Adams) develop a crush on homophobic man’s man, Gary (George Trotter), culminating in an excruciating attempted kiss in the darkness of a cinema. Gary ended up having a teenage wedding to Noddy’s girlfriend, Angel (Vicky Taylor), only for him to cheat on her with her younger sister, Bridgid.

Random loners also made their appearances, including the spiteful Leah (Jayni Hoy), who was rescued from a crazy cult called Psychandrics, and Arran (Neil Blackstone), a traveller who lived in a caravan with his dying granny. Other people worth mentioning are Charley (not Donna Air, but an earlier incarnation, the later Charlie’s cousin in fact, played by Michelle Charles), nice-but-dim Speedy, and Christian fanatic and later New Age freak, Patsy. The affable but gullible Frew (Luke Dale) was egged on to losing his virginity in a cemetery of all places, and for a while thought he was going to be a father. Frew’s mate Barney (Stephen Carr) turned into a vicious mugger, Lee (Rory Gibson) was Byker Grove’s own Delboy, and Terry (Chris Woodger) was a little charva graffiti-artist who led everyone astray but always did the right thing in the end.

Geoff was helped out by the long-suffering Alison (Victoria Murray), who acted as counsellor to the kids. Together they tried to prevent gang warfare between the Grovers and the kids from Denton Burn (later Denwell Burn, presumably to avoid offending actual residents of Denton), who were very definitely from the glue-sniffing, joy riding side of the tracks.

Byker Grove is of course responsible for the small phenomenon that is Ant and Dec, whose Geordieness seems to be their main selling point, which is inexplicable to anyone from the area. It all started when their characters on the programme set up their own rave/dance combo, and recorded a song called ‘Tonight I’m Free’ under the name Grove Matrix (named after a computer disk if I remember rightly.) It was released and reached number 62 in 1993, but someone obviously thought it was an idea they could run with.

Others followed suit, including Byker Grooove (Vicky Taylor, Donna Air and Jayni Hoy) with ‘Love Your Sexy…!”, and Point Break, who claimed to have nothing to do with the show, even though two of the trio were Brett Adams and Oliver Stone. They had hits with ‘Stand Tough’ and ‘Freakytime’. Let’s hope that’s an end to it.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 9/10

(Thanks to the BBC's Byker Grove website for the borrowed pic)