The Grove Family

Last updated

The Grove Family
TheGroveFamily.jpg
Created by Roland and Michael Pertwee
Starring
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series1
No. of episodes148
Production
ProducerJohn Warrington
Running time15 minutes (April 1954–September 1955)
30 minutes (September 1955–June 1957) [1]
Original release
Network BBC
Release9 April 1954 (1954-04-09) 
28 June 1957 (1957-06-28)

The Grove Family was a British television series soap opera, generally regarded as the first of its kind broadcast in the UK, [2] made and broadcast by the BBC Television Service from 1954 to 1957. The series concerned the life of the family of the title, who were named after the BBC's Lime Grove Studios where the programme was made.

Contents

The programme was written by Roland and Michael Pertwee, the father and elder brother respectively of actor Jon Pertwee. As was common for British television at the time, the series was broadcast live and very few episodes survive in the archives: only three of the original 148 episodes. [3] One of the few surviving shows was transmitted on BBC Four during 2004. A film version produced during 1955 by the Butchers company, written by the Pertwees and featuring the television cast, exists as an example of the series. [4] The film was entitled It's a Great Day and shown on the Talking Pictures TV channel in July 2017. During 1954 The Grove Family was viewed by almost a quarter of British people with a television. [2] The show was reportedly brought to an end when, after three years' writing, the Pertwees' request for a break was refused by the BBC, with the Corporation preferring to cancel the popular series altogether. [5]

Peter Bryant, who featured as Jack Grove, later became a script editor and producer of the BBC science fiction series Doctor Who . [6] Christopher Beeny, who played the teenage Lennie Grove, later featured in the series Upstairs, Downstairs (1971–75), and actress Ruth Dunning (Gladys Grove) later won a BAFTA award for her work on Armchair Theatre . [7] [8]

In 1991 during a special day of programming on BBC2 to commemorate the closing of Lime Grove, a new edition of the programme was shown, a modern production of one of the original scripts with the roles filled by popular television soap opera actors of the time including Leslie Grantham, Anna Wing, Sue Johnston, Nick Berry, Sally Ann Matthews, Paul Parris and Kellie Bright. [9]

Plot

The lower middle-class Grove family live in the London suburb of Hendon. [10] Patriarch Bob Grove is a builder, allowing the show to demonstrate basic home security. [11] He lives with his mother, his wife, and their four children. The first episode shows the family making their last mortgage payment, and over the course of the series Bob tries to grow his business and attain prosperity in postwar Britain. The fourth episode shows Gran buying the family a television set, a sign of the new consumerism. [1] Gran Groves' demand "I want me tea" became a catchphrase. [12]

Theme tune

The theme tune, named Family Joke and featuring harmonica played by Tommy Reilly, was composed by Eric Spear, who went on to become better known as the composer of the theme tune to the long-running soap opera Coronation Street . [13]

Principal cast

See also

Related Research Articles

Jonathan Leslie Powell is an English former television producer and executive. His senior positions in television included serving as the Head of BBC Drama Series and Serials and Controller of BBC1. He later became a professor and head of department of Media Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Marsh</span> English actress (b. 1934)

Jean Lyndsey Torren Marsh is an English actress and writer. She co-created and starred in the ITV series Upstairs, Downstairs (1971–75), for which she won the 1975 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her performance as Rose Buck. She later reprised the role in the BBC's revival of the series (2010–2012).

John Slade Nettleton was an English actor best known for playing Sir Arnold Robinson, Cabinet Secretary in Yes Minister (1980–1984) and President of the Campaign for Freedom of Information in the follow-up Yes, Prime Minister (1985–1988). Another political role for Nettleton was as Conservative Party MP Sir Stephen Baxter in the sitcom The New Statesman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Bryant</span> British actor, and producer of Doctor Who

Peter Bryant was an English television producer, script editor and former actor. He acted in The Grove Family as a regular cast member and later became the producer of Doctor Who from 1967 to 1969 during Patrick Troughton's tenure as the Second Doctor. He also produced the series Paul Temple before becoming a literary agent.

<i>Emergency Ward 10</i> British television series

Emergency Ward 10 is a British medical soap opera series shown on ITV between 1957 and 1967. Like The Grove Family, a series shown by the BBC between 1954 and 1957, Emergency Ward 10 is considered to be one of British television's first major soap operas.

<i>The Rag Trade</i> British TV sitcom (1961–1978)

The Rag Trade is a British television sitcom broadcast by the BBC between 1961 and 1963 and by ITV between 1977 and 1978. Although a comedy, it shed light on gender, politics and the "class war" on the factory floor.

Simon Langton is an English television director and producer. He is the son of David Langton, the actor who played Richard Bellamy in Upstairs, Downstairs.

Nicola Mary Pagett Scott, known professionally as Nicola Pagett, was a British actress, known for her role as Elizabeth Bellamy in the 1970s TV drama series Upstairs, Downstairs (1971–1973), as well as being one of the leads in the sitcom Ain't Misbehavin' (1994–1995). Her film appearances included Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), Frankenstein: The True Story (1973), Operation Daybreak (1975), Privates on Parade (1982) and An Awfully Big Adventure (1995).

Christopher Winton Beeny was an English actor and dancer. He had a career as a child actor, but was best known for his work as the footman Edward Barnes on the 1970s television series Upstairs, Downstairs, as Billy Henshaw in the sitcom In Loving Memory, and as the incompetent debt collector and golfer Morton Beamish in Last of the Summer Wine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joan Benham</span> English actress (1918–1981)

Joan Benham was an English actress best known for her portrayal of Lady Prudence Fairfax in the ITV period drama series Upstairs, Downstairs. She was born in London and was the first cousin of Hollywood actress Olive Sturgess.

Geoffrey Harold Posner is a British television producer and director. Posner has directed and produced some of Britain's most successful comedy shows since the early 1980s.

<i>Its a Great Day</i> 1955 film by John Warrington

It's a Great Day is a 1955 British comedy film directed by John Warrington starring Ruth Dunning, Edward Evans and Sid James. It is a spin-off from the popular BBC TV soap The Grove Family.

<i>The Forsyte Saga</i> (1967 TV series) 1967 UK television series

The Forsyte Saga is a 1967 BBC television adaptation of John Galsworthy's series of The Forsyte Saga novels, and its sequel trilogy A Modern Comedy. The series follows the fortunes of the upper middle class Forsyte family, and stars Eric Porter as Soames, Kenneth More as Young Jolyon and Nyree Dawn Porter as Irene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noel Dyson</span> English actress (1916–1995)

Elsie Noël Dyson was an English character actress

<i>Whirligig</i> (TV series) British TV programme for children

Whirligig was a BBC television programme for children broadcast from November 1950 until 1956. It was the first children's programme to be broadcast live from the BBC's Lime Grove Studios, at 5:00 pm on alternate Saturdays.

Joan Kemp-Welch was a British stage and film actress, who later went on to become a television director. After making her stage debut in 1926 at the Q Theatre, Kemp-Welch made her film debut in 1933 and appeared in fifteen films over the next decade largely in supporting or minor roles. Occasionally she played more substantial parts as in Hard Steel and They Flew Alone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joanne Cole</span> British artist and illustrator

Joanne Cole was a British artist and illustrator. She most notably produced numerous children's books in the 1960s through to the 1980s. She also created artwork and puppets for British TV children's programmes. Together with husband Michael Cole they created Bod.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Cole (writer)</span> British writer

Michael Cole was a British writer. He created a number of children's programmes from the 1970s to the 1990s, including Alphabet Castle, Heads and Tails and Ragtime, for which he won a Society of Film and Television Award for Best Children's Programme. Together with his wife Joanne Cole, he created Bod, originally published as four books in 1965 and made into a TV show in the 1970s, as well as Fingerbobs and Gran.

Jon Rollason was an English television actor, broadcaster and writer. He is best remembered for the role of Dr. Martin King in The Avengers. He appeared in episodes of Doctor Who, Z-Cars, Coronation Street, Softly, Softly, and the soap opera Crossroads. For the last of these, he also wrote the scripts for some episodes.

References

  1. 1 2 Laing, Stuart (7 November 1986). Representations of Working-Class Life 1957–1964. Macmillan International Higher Education. ISBN   9781349184590.
  2. 1 2 "Grove Family, The (1954–57)". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 2 January 2013.
  3. "Lost UK TV Shows – The Grove Family". lostshows.com. Retrieved 30 December 2009.
  4. "It's a Great Day – review - cast and crew, movie star rating and where to watch film on TV and online". Radio Times.
  5. Evans, Jeff (2003). The Penguin TV Companion, 2nd edition. London: Penguin. p. 308. ISBN   0141012218.
  6. "BBC - Doctor Who Classic Episode Guide - Season 4". www.bbc.co.uk.
  7. "BFI Screenonline: Upstairs, Downstairs (1971-75)". www.screenonline.org.uk.
  8. "BAFTA Awards". awards.bafta.org.
  9. "The Grove Family (1991)". BFI. Archived from the original on 13 May 2019.
  10. Cooke, L. (18 October 2013). Style in British Television Drama. Springer. ISBN   9781137265920.
  11. "BFI Screenonline: Grove Family, The (1954-57)". www.screenonline.org.uk.
  12. The Nigel Rees book of Slogans & Catchphrases. London: Unwin. 1984. p. 132. ISBN   978-0-04-827108-2.
  13. IMDb