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Where the Heart Is | |
---|---|
Genre | Family drama |
Created by | Vicky Featherstone Ashley Pharoah |
Starring | the cast |
Opening theme | Prefab Sprout – "Where the Heart Is" |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of series | 10 |
No. of episodes | 110 |
Production | |
Producer(s) | United Productions (later Granada) with: Anglia Television (1997–2001) Meridian Broadcasting (2002–2005) Granada Television (2006) |
Running time | 60 minutes |
Release | |
Original network | ITV |
Picture format | 4:3 (1997) 14:9 (1998) 16:9 (1999–2006) |
Audio format | Stereo |
Original release | 6 April 1997 – 10 September 2006 |
Where the Heart Is is a British television family drama series set in the Yorkshire town of Skelthwaite. First shown in 1997, it was created by Ashley Pharoah and Vicky Featherstone and focuses on the professional and personal lives of the district nurses who work in the town. The original leads were Sarah Lancashire and Pam Ferris, who played sisters-in-law and colleagues at the Skelthwaite Health Centre. Both actresses had left the series by 2000, but the format of at least two female leads continued with various actresses until the show's end. A typical episode would focus on one or two medical storylines interwoven with personal stories featuring one or both nurses.
Yorkshire, formally known as the County of York, is a historic county of Northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Due to its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform. Throughout these changes, Yorkshire has continued to be recognised as a geographical territory and cultural region. The name is familiar and well understood across the United Kingdom and is in common use in the media and the military, and also features in the titles of current areas of civil administration such as North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and East Riding of Yorkshire.
Ashley Pharoah is a British screenwriter and television producer. He is best known as the co-creator/writer of the successful drama series Life on Mars, which began on BBC One in 2006, and creator/writer of the family drama Wild at Heart, which aired on ITV1 from 2006 until 2012.
Vicky Featherstone is a theatre and artistic director. She has been artistic director of London's Royal Court Theatre since April 2013. Prior to that she was founding artistic director of the National Theatre of Scotland, and before that artistic director of the UK new writing touring theatre company Paines Plough. Her career has been characterised by significant involvement with new writing.
One of ITV's longest-running shows, Where the Heart Is was known for being what has been described as a haven for former soap stars, including Lancashire, Philip Middlemiss, Samantha Giles, Kerrie Taylor, Brian Capron and Shobna Gulati. In October 2006, the series was cancelled after nine years, despite viewing figures of well over 7 million. [1]
ITV is a British free-to-air television network with its headquarters in London, it was launched in 1955 as Independent Television under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to BBC Television, that was established in 1932. ITV is also the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, its legal name has been Channel 3, to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time, namely BBC 1, BBC 2 and Channel 4. In part, the number 3 was assigned because television sets would usually be tuned so that the regional ITV station would be on the third button, with the other stations being allocated to the number within their name.
Philip Middlemiss is an English television and radio actor, who played bookmaker Des Barnes in ITV's Coronation Street. He subsequently appeared in ITV's Where the Heart Is.
Samantha Elizabeth Giles is an English actress, probably best known for playing Bernice Blackstock in Emmerdale, a role which earned her a TV Quick Award for Best Actress and a nomination for a National Television Awards for Most Popular Actress, and Sally Boothe in Where the Heart Is (2003–2005).
The theme song "Where the Heart is" was performed by Prefab Sprout (written and sung by Paddy McAloon). It was released as a single and appears on the band's 38 Carat Collection .
Prefab Sprout are an English pop band from Witton Gilbert, County Durham, England who rose to fame during the 1980s. Nine of their albums have reached the Top 40 in the UK Albums Chart, and one of their singles, "The King of Rock 'n' Roll", peaked at number seven in the UK Singles Chart. The band formed in 1978 in Newcastle.
Patrick Joseph McAloon is an English singer-songwriter and a founder of the band Prefab Sprout.
38 Carat Collection is a compilation album by the English pop band Prefab Sprout, released in October 1999 by Columbia Records. It was issued in a double CD version. Each disc is arranged in chronological order, with most of the group's singles appearing on disc 1 and tracks from their six previous studio albums on disc 2.
The series has been repeated on ITV3.
The show follows the lives of the people of Skelthwaite, a fictional small Yorkshire town; particularly the work of the district nurses at the town's health centre. It originally focuses on the extended Snow and Goddard family — sisters-in-law and close friends Peggy Snow (Ferris) and Ruth Goddard (Lancashire) who work together as district nurses, while Ruth's husband and Peggy's younger brother Simon (Thomas Craig) is the town's main employer through his paper products factory. Peggy's husband Vic (Tony Haygarth) and her children Stephen and Lucy provide family-focused storylines which sit alongside the medical-based plots.
Thomas Craig is an English actor. He is known for his roles in Murdoch Mysteries, Where the Heart Is, Hidden, Coronation Street, and The Navigators.
George Anthony David Haygarth was an English television, film and theatre actor.
The programme underwent major changes at the end of series three and the beginning of series four, with first Lancashire and then Ferris departing. Ruth and Simon split, with Ruth moving to Australia and Peggy tragically dies following a road accident involving a horse which also left her daughter Lucy fighting for her life. Storylines continued to focus on the rest of the family, with Simon and Vic adjusting to life as single men and for Vic, as a single father, whilst old friends Anna Kirkwall (Lesley Dunlop) and Karen Buckley (Leslie Ash) take over at the health centre. Anna begins a romance with Simon, but rejects him just before their wedding day, knowing that he wants to be with Ruth and Alfie in Australia. Karen's marriage to her husband David (Philip Middlemiss) crumbles when she chooses to focus on helping her long-lost son recover from his drug addiction, leading to Ash's departure from the series in 2003. Anna and David later become a couple, marry and remain the show's lead characters for the rest of its run.
Lesley Jane Dunlop is an English actress. She is best known for her roles as Anna Kirkwall in Where the Heart Is, Zoë Angell in May to December and her current role as Brenda Walker in Emmerdale.
Leslie Ash is a British actress. She is best known for her roles in C.A.T.S. Eyes. (1985–1987), the BBC sitcom Men Behaving Badly (1992–1997), ITV drama Where the Heart Is (2000–2003), and BBC medical drama Holby City (2009–2010). Her book My Life Behaving Badly: The Autobiography was published in 2007.
Several other nurses work alongside Anna during this time, most notably Sally Boothe (Samantha Giles), whose family becomes the focus of many of the non-medical storylines after the remaining members of the Snow family departed in 2002. In an echo of the Snow family's development, Sally is also killed off, with later storylines focusing on her family's attempts to cope without her.
Over the years the cast was expanded and the show became more of an ensemble drama, with typically three major nurse characters at any one time alongside other townsfolk, usually workers at Goddard's Paper Products and their families.
Thirteen of the episodes were written by the character actress and screenwriter Cecily Hobbs.
The series was filmed in the Colne and Holme valleys of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire using the real life villages of Marsden, Golcar, Slaithwaite and Meltham for many of the external shots. The first series was mostly filmed in Slaithwaite, with some exterior shots filmed in the village of Baildon, but from series 2 onwards, Marsden was used as the principal filming location.
DVDs of the series in the UK are listed below, released by Network DVD. So far Series 1, 2, 3 and 4 have been released.
DVD Season | Ep # | Original aired | Region 2 (UK) | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Series 1 | 6 | 6 April – 11 May 1997 | 27 March 2006 [2] | |
Series 2 | 10 | 19 April – 5 July 1998 | 21 May 2012 [3] | |
Series 3 | 14 | 18 April – 25 July 1999 | 6 May 2013 [4] | |
Series 4 | 16 | 30 April – 3 September 2000 | 10 March 2014 [5] | |
Series 5 | 16 | 22 April – 12 August 2001 | TBA | |
Series 6 | 12 | 21 April – 7 July 2002 | TBA | |
Series 7 | 9 | 6 July – 23 December 2003 | TBA | |
Series 8 | 8 | 11 July – 29 August 2004 | TBA | |
Series 9 | 10 | 26 June – 28 August 2005 | TBA | |
Series 10 | 9 | 16 July – 10 September 2006 | TBA |
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