Richmond Hill (TV series)

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Richmond Hill was an Australian television soap opera made in 1988 by the Reg Grundy Organisation for the Ten Network. It was devised by Reg Watson who also created Neighbours. It first aired as a two hour episode on Network 10 at 19.30 Wednesday 27 January 1988.

The series was set in a small Australian country town and most of the scenes revolved around the local police station and the pub. The cast was made up of experienced soap actors such as Maggie Kirkpatrick, Amanda Muggleton, Paula Duncan and Gwen Plumb and young beginners like Ashley Paske and Emily Symons. Former comedy star Ross Higgins played the central role of the local police officer and family man Dan Costello.

Richmond Hill was broadcast in an evening timeslot 7.30 as two one-hour episodes each week. The programme was produced in Sydney; some location shooting took place in Mona Vale, New South Wales. The series emerged as only a lukewarm success in the Australian ratings, and was cancelled after only one year. Coincidentally, the series was axed during the very same week that it debuted on British television, having been sold to the ITV network.

The UK's ITV networked (except Granada) the show in the Wednesday and Thursday 14.00 slot from autumn 1988. Soon after its debut, Central Television chose to break away from the network screenings. Central fell behind the rest of the network while Granada chose to screen A Country Practice in the Thursday slot instead. The series was dropped by Granada just after other regions had ended it. Granada eventually resumed the series on Sundays at 14.00 in mid-1991, playing it out to the end. Yorkshire Television broke away from the network for the final episode in summer 1989 and screened it on a Friday whereas all other 11 regions screened it on the following Wednesday. The majority of regions resumed A Country Practice as its replacement.

Richmond Hill was last screened in the UK in the mid-1990s on cable & satellite channel Wire TV (hosted by Femi Oke with guest presenters Richard Arnold, Darren Edwards, Chris Stacey and Darren Gray), it was screened back to back with USA soap The Bold and the Beautiful, before Wire TV was finally axed in 1994.

Grundy also sold the soap to German television channel Pro 7, and Richmond Hill was dubbed into German. It was aired twice a week from 1991 to 1992.

[edit] Major Cast

[edit] ITV Regional Scheduling

ITV Region
Programme Schedule Pattern
Start Date
Days Screened
End Date
Central Television As Thames As Thames then reduced to Wednesdays only some months after Thames
Yorkshire Television (YTV) fastest As Thames As Thames and brought final episode to an earlier date on a Friday Friday 25 August 1989 14.00
Granada Television slowest Wednesday ?? November 1988 As Thames then reduced to Wednesdays only. Then dropped then resurfaced on Sundays at 14.00 then dropped then resumed on Sundays. 1991???
Television South (TVS) As Thames As Thames As Thames
Television South West (TSW) As Thames As Thames As Thames
Channel Television As TVS As TVS As TVS
Thames Television Wednesday 5 October 1988 14.00 Wednesdays and Thursdays 14.00 Wednesday 30 August 1989 14.00
Anglia Television As Thames As Thames As Thames
Tyne Tees Television As Thames As Thames As Thames
Scottish Television (STV) As Thames As Thames, (a networked episode had to be missed on a Wednesday due to a memorial service for the Lockerbie disaster. The episode missed was shown on the day after and the episode which should have been screened on Thursday was shown on the following Monday at 13.30 with Border and Grampian)  ???
Grampian Television As Thames As Thames (a networked episode had to be missed on a Wednesday due to a memorial service for the Lockerbie disaster. The episode missed was shown on the day after and the episode which should have been screened on Thursday was shown on the following Monday at 13.30 with Border and STV) As Thames
HTV As Thames As Thames As Thames
Border Television As Thames As Thames (a networked episode had to be missed on a Wednesday due to a memorial service for the Lockerbie disaster. The episode missed was shown on the day after and the episode which should have been screened on Thursday was shown on the following Monday at 13.30 with STV and Grampian) As Thames
Ulster Television As Thames As Thames As Thames

[edit] External links