Name: The Grimleys
Genre: Comedy
Released: 1999-03-08
Rating: 7.6
Cast: Amanda Holden, Jan Ravens, Craig Kelly, Brian Conley, Ryan Cartwright

Synopsis

The Grimleys is a nostalgic comedy-drama television series set on a council estate in Dudley, West Midlands, England in the mid-1970s. It was first broadcast by Granada TV for ITV in 1999, following a pilot in 1997, and concluded in 2001 after three series. The show was written by Jed Mercurio, who had trained as a doctor and whose first series, Cardiac Arrest - written under the pseudonym 'John… MacUre' - had attracted critical plaudits for its dark portrayal of life in a disintegrating British National Health Service. The filming of the school took place in Salford, Buile Hill High, Hope High and Pendleton College, although the filming of the characters' homes actually took place some 80 miles away in the Dudley area itself; around Parkes Hall Road on the Dudley-Sedgley border.

The theme music of the first series is "Bye Bye Baby" by the Bay City Rollers over the title credits and either "Mama Weer All Crazee Now" or "Cum On Feel the Noize", both by Slade, over the end credits.

Noddy Holder performs an acoustic version of "Cum On Feel the Noize" over the end credits of the episode "The Road Not Taken".

Holder performs an alternative Easter version of "Merry Xmas Everybody" during the episode "???", mimes "How Does It Feel?" on a piano in the episode "The Bionic Boy" and performs an acoustic version of "'Coz I Luv You" over the end credits of the Series 2 finale, "The Prime of Mr Doug Digby".

In the Series 3 finale , Holder performs an acoustic version of Everyday (Slade song) as he serenades Jan Grimley, this ends with them kissing for the first time, this was the original ending to what would have been a two part finale.

Gordon Grimley (James Bradshaw) is an intellectual but feeble schoolboy who has a crush on his teacher, Miss Geraldine Titley (Amanda Holden; Samantha Janus in the pilot).

Their father Baz (Nigel Planer) is a bone-idle British Leyland car worker, who injured his back on his first day at the Longbridge plant and went on strike on the second.