Sir Phil Redmond calls for soaps to 'tackle the real social issues'

The creator of Brookside and Grange Hill has called for more gritty storylines in soaps as he was knighted.

Merseyside-born Sir Phil Redmond, who was also behind Hollyoaks, received the honour at Windsor Castle on Wednesday.

Speaking afterwards, he criticised modern "comfortable, non-contentious" programming and said soaps needed to "tackle the real social issues".

He also revealed he wrote a "spoof soap" called Corona-nation Street to "keep myself sane in the pandemic".

Born in Liverpool in 1949, Sir Phil based his first ideas for Grange Hill on his time at St Kevin's RC School in Northwood, Kirkby.

The series about a London comprehensive school, which ran from 1978 to 2008, took BBC children's TV away from what he has previously called "Enid Blyton, middle-class drama" and tackled issues such as racism, drug abuse, teen pregnancy and mental illness.

He brought the same realism to Brookside, which was shown for more than two decades on Channel 4.

He said he could not confirm if either show would be rebooted, but admitted there were "conversations going on around both".

"There needs to be something like a Brookside or a Grange Hill because we seem to have lost that," he said.

"It's almost as though contemporary drama has been no-platformed in television, drama that's really difficult has dropped back into being single dramas."

Sir Phil, who was knighted for services to broadcasting and arts in the regions, also said he was "not a fan" of reality shows, which he said were "easy, copycat television".

"All that effort, intellectual energy and resource going on just another bunch of people, seeing how they're going to react in a room. That's all it is, isn't it?"

He said Channel 4, which is also home to Hollyoaks, should be "commissioning regularly proper dramas that are tackling the proper issues around it all".

"I actually wrote a spoof soap to keep myself sane through the pandemic called Corona-nation Street, about what it would be like to have a programme on dealing with it day-to-day, live, and all those differences with people," he said.

"It'd be a fantastic story to have on-screen... some neighbours pro, some neighbours anti, somebody working in the NHS.

"What a fantastic storyline to have running, being played out on our screens at the moment."

He said the soaps on screen at present were doing the job they are asked to do, but broadcasters were "not pushing them enough".

They should be featuring storylines on issues like sexting, county lines drugs and the levelling up agenda, he said, adding: "They need to find the courage to meet the challenge, and to tackle the real social issues that are going on."

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