Desperados is a British children's drama series, created and written for CBBC by Paul Smith in 2007, which depicts a wheelchair basketball team. The focus is on the journey of former footballer Charlie who, following a disabling accident on the pitch caused by his friend and team-mate Aidan, finds new meaning and purpose in his life when he joins a team called the Desperados.
Team coach Baggy Awolowo is searching for new players for a junior wheelchair basketball team. He says "You might think this is a basketball team. You're wrong, it's a way of life". Baggy later invites Aidan to joins the Desperados as their only non-disabled player, having been impressed by Aidan's shooting a perfect basket in the gym one day after practice.
There is plenty of drama off the basketball court as well as on it – involving such things as the players' different and sometimes turbulent home lives; Charlie patching up his friendship with Aidan; the players raising money by going street collecting, as well as demonstrating their basketball skills, in order to raise money to keep their team mini-bus on the road so they can continue to travel to away venues and avoid being dropped from the league; and prejudice against disabled people, as is shown when Vicky and Gabby encounter an abusive drunk man at the hotel where the team are staying on the night of an important league away match (the girls give as good as they get by Gabby blasting the man with a fire extinguisher, the girls claiming innocence when the manager arrives, and the drunk being ejected from the premises). The team also have to cope with the sudden and unexpected tragedy of losing their team-mate and captain Adam, who was in hospital having a heart-valve operation and failed to pull through.
The series was originally broadcast on the CBBC Channel on Wednesdays at 5.30pm. It was shown daily on BBC One from 14 August 2007 at 4.05pm.
Byker Grove is a British teen drama and coming of age television series which aired between 1989 and 2006 as part of CBBC on BBC One. Set and filmed in Byker, Newcastle upon Tyne, it was created by writer Adele Rose and executive producer Andrea Wonfor. The show was broadcast at 5:10 pm after Newsround. It was aimed at an older teenager and young adult audience, tackling serious and sometimes controversial storylines. The show is notable for depicting the first gay kiss on children’s television, as well as its breach of the fourth wall in the final series.
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BBC Children's and Education is the BBC division responsible for media content for children in the UK. Since the launch of specially dedicated television channels in 2002, the services have been marketed under two brands. CBBC is aimed at children aged between 6 and 12, and CBeebies offers content for younger viewers. Unlike CBeebies, the CBBC brand predates the launch of these channels all the way back to when it was just a children's block on the main channel BBC, when it was also the brand name used for all of the BBC's children's programmes. CBBC broadcasts from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm and CBeebies broadcasts from 6:00 am to 7:00 pm, respectively timesharing with BBC Three for CBBC and BBC Four for CBeebies. The brands also have dedicated websites, social media channels, and over-the-top media services on BBC iPlayer.
Newsround is a BBC children's news programme, which has run continuously since 4 April 1972. It was one of the world's first television news magazines aimed specifically at children. Initially commissioned as a short series by BBC Children's Department, who held editorial control, its facilities were provided by BBC News. The programme is aimed at 5 to 17-year-olds.
Dame Jacqueline Wilson is an English novelist known for her popular children's literature. Her novels have been notable for featuring realistic topics such as adoption and divorce without alienating her large readership. Since her debut novel in 1969, Wilson has written over 100 books.
Adedoyin Olayiwola "Ade" Adepitan is a Nigerian-born British television presenter and wheelchair basketball player. As a presenter, he has hosted a range of travel documentaries and sports programmes for BBC television. Adepitan is a disability advocate and one of the first physically disabled television presenters in the UK, with a career of over 20 years.
Gemma Bissix is an English actress. She has been acting since the age of 9. Her most prominent roles have been in soap operas, as Clare Bates in EastEnders and Clare Devine in Hollyoaks ; she was awarded with two British Soap Awards for the latter role. Away from soap opera, Bissix has appeared in various television programmes and she competed in the 2009 series of Dancing on Ice. She has appeared in various pantomimes. Bissix returned to Hollyoaks in 2013.
Sport Relief was a biennial charity event from Comic Relief, in association with BBC Sport, established in 2002.
Paul Smith is a British television writer who was born and lives in London.
David Proud is an English actor, writer and producer. He was born with spina bifida and uses a wheelchair. Proud has received critical praise for his comic acting ability in many popular series.
CBBC is a British free-to-air public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the brand used for all BBC content for children aged 6–12. Its sister channel, CBeebies, broadcasts programming and content for children aged 5 and under. It broadcasts every day from 7 am to 7 pm, timesharing with BBC Three.
Adam Best is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by David Proud, the first adult actor with a visible disability to appear regularly in the soap. Both Proud and his character live with spina bifida. The character made his first appearance in the episode broadcast on 10 September 2009 and his last in the one broadcast on 19 July 2010.
Spirit Warriors is a BBC children's adventure series, broadcast on BBC Two, BBC HD and CBBC. It is the first British television drama series to have a predominantly East Asian cast.
Australia competed at the 1980 Summer Paralympics in Arnhem, Netherlands. It was the 6th Summer Paralympic Games in which Australia had competed. These Games were the biggest Paralympics yet, with 1,973 people participating. Of those participants, 57 were Australian. The team was made up of 45 men and 12 women, and was Australia's largest team to compete at any Paralympic Games so far.
Laurie Anne Williams is a 2.5 point British-Irish wheelchair basketball player who participated at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, and the 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo, representing Great Britain.
Navy Wife is a 1935 American drama film directed by Allan Dwan and written by Sonya Levien and Edward T. Lowe Jr. It is based on the 1935 novel Beauty's Daughter by Kathleen Norris. The film stars Claire Trevor, Ralph Bellamy, Jane Darwell, Warren Hymer, Ben Lyon and Kathleen Burke. The film was released on November 29, 1935, by 20th Century Fox.
Joshua Allison is a 1.0 point wheelchair basketball player from Australia. He played basketball for the Kilsyth Cobras and the Sherbroke Suns before suffering a serious accident in 2011. He began playing wheelchair basketball in 2013, and was selected for the national team in 2014. That year he was part of the team that won the 2014 Incheon World Wheelchair Basketball Championship. In 2016, he represented Australia the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Isabel Martin is a 1.0 point Australian wheelchair basketball player. She made her international debut with the Australian women's national wheelchair basketball team at the Osaka Cup in February 2016. In May 2019, she was part of the Australian U25 team that won silver at the 2019 Women's U25 Wheelchair Basketball World Championship in Suphanburi, Thailand. She represented Australia at the 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo and the 2022 Wheelchair Basketball World Championships in Dubai.
We Are England is a regional current affairs documentary programme shown on BBC One. The programme is made by six teams around England, based in Birmingham, London, Bristol, Leeds, Newcastle and Norwich. The programme airs six original half-hour documentaries each week, with each week themed around a different topic; the first theme was Mental Health. The programme replaced regional current affairs show Inside Out. A notable change was that each We Are England episode is a single half hour documentary, whereas Inside Out normally aired a collection of short-form pieces in its 30 minute slot. Another change is a cutback in the number of teams, from 11 regional hubs to six.
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