River City

River City is a television soap opera, first broadcast in Scotland on BBC Scotland on 24 September 2002. River City storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional district of Shieldinch in Glasgow. The series primarily centres around the residents of Shieldinch, their houses, flats and apartments and its neighbouring streets, namely Montego Street and which encompasses a pub, bistro, community centre, café and various small businesses, in addition to a subway station and basketball court.

The series was originally screened as two half-hour episodes per week. Today, one hour-long episode is broadcast each week - usually Tuesday evenings on BBC One Scotland (while Holby City is broadcast across the rest of BBC One), repeated Sunday afternoons on either BBC One Scotland or BBC Two Scotland. In Australia, River City is screened 11:00am weekdays on Seven's British-oriented multichannel 7TWO.

Setting

River City is set in the city of Glasgow, in the west of Scotland. The central focus of the show is the fictional West End district of Shieldinch, which was famous for its shipyard (1860–1930). Therefore, Shieldinch's local pub was named after the area's shipbuilding heritage, being called The Tall Ship. In reality River City is filmed in the nearby town of Dumbarton, where there is a purpose built set for the soap.

Characters

River City is built around the ideas of relationships and families, with each character having a place within the community. The range of characters in River City deal with family problems, upset and conflict, yet working together in times of needs. The first central family in River City was the Hamilton family consisting of Malcolm Hamilton, his daughters, Eileen Donachie and Gina Hamilton, and Gina's daughters Ruth Rossi and Joanne Rossi. The second central family in River City during the early days was the Henderson family; both families have evolved throughout the years.

The Hamilton and Adams–Mullen families have been central to many notable River City storylines, the show having been dominated by the Hamiltons from the show's inception in 2002, as well as the Adams–Mullen families from around 2003. Early 2007 saw the show dominated by the newly introduced Murdoch clan, whilst after that, more of an emphasis was put on the Hamilton family once again. The year 2008 saw a couple move to Shieldinch, the McKees, featuring in many storylines from their own lives and problems. As well as this, 2009 saw the introduction of the students and the hairdressers, consisting of father, daughter and two stylists.

Storylines

2002

The series began on 24 September 2002, with the wedding of Eileen and Tommy Donachie, who then owned the local public house, The Tall Ship, with their respective families celebrating coming together. However, Eileen's ex-husband and father of her two children, turned up on their wedding day and it became apparent that he was unhappy, as was Eileen's old flame Lewis Cope, who also turned up on in Shieldinch. Gina Rossi's daughter Joanne had an affair with her sister's Ruth's partner, Cormac, with him making an enemy of Lewis as well as many others. Eileen eventually had a sordid affair with Lewis, which marked the end of her marriage to Tommy. Next came the controversial relationship of an underage Kirsty Henderson with Russ, which made father Raymond livid, and in the same year, Derek Henderson's absent mother Alice turned up after a sixteen-year absence leading to be a real mother to Derek. However, it was soon revealed that George, Derek's grandfather had paid Alice off to leave him for good, and he brought him up instead. The new temptress of Shieldinch, Joanne fell for Nazir Malik, which led to nothing but heartache, however Shieldinch did have a happy Christmas.^[1]

2003

In 2003, Eileen's estranged husband Tommy was knocked dead by the 'Shieldinch Strangler' who attacked many residents over a length of time, leading them all to fear their lives. Revenge became a big part of everyone's lives as an abrupt Ewan injected Lewis with heroin in order to get his own back, which led to Lewis becoming HIV positive, and having to telling his partner Alice, who had already suffered a lot of misfortune. Young 'Shellsuit Bob' declared his love for Zara Malik who had been getting bullied for her race and her culture's traditions, however it didn't last, but Bob didn't worry about it any longer, as he had big problems when sassy Scarlett Adams rocked up in her ice cream van, causing mayhem among the residents of Shieldinch and ruffled a few feathers to say the least. Joanne after a failed relationship with Nazir, had his child, a baby boy, naming him Franco after her late father. But soon Joanne was in for more heartache when Helen kidnapped baby Franco, and even though Cormac managed to find him, Helen snatched him once again, threatening to jump into the river with the baby, as she was jealous of her husband's relationships with other women, however Ewan managed to persuade her not to do it. Whilst in the same year, Gina discovered that her new love interest, Dr. Marcus McKenzie was a brutal rapist, and soon Gina was one of his unsuspecting victims, leaving her scared for months on end, having to come to terms with her attack, and as well as Gina, Marcus attempted to rape Heather Bellshaw, however she fought back and attacked him, whilst murdering him in the process, leaving Gina's daughter Joanne in the frame. Later in the year, Hazel was kidnapped by a mentally ill Brian Henderson who became obsessed with her.^[2]

2004

When 2004 came, Brian's problems seemed to get worse, and when he took his grandmother Moira for a joyride, he killed her in the process, however he walked away alive, and people began to see his problems were worse than they first thought. Hazel who was still kidnapped by Brian was rescued by Vader and they fell in love in the process, and soon trouble arose between Billy Davies and Lewis Cope, when Billy gambled a night with his wife Della, in a poker game but lost too Lewis. Roisin also was revealed to have a secret, a daughter who she had put up for adoption when she was young, Alanna when Raymond orchestrated a reunion sixteen years later! However, troubled Alanna got involved with a married Vader who was just using her, which led to disastrous consequences. Bob fell in love with a scheming Michelle, and her young baby Rochelle, and Eileen had yet another affair, this time with her sister's partner, Archie Buchanan. New characters the Cullen family turned up in Shieldinch that year, including sisters Zoe and Nicki and their drug addict mother Patricia, and that same year Heather was in the dock at Marcus' trial. Marcus' daughter Steph McKenzie avenged her father's murder by stabbing Joanne who she thought had murdered him, and Raymond married once again, this time to Roisin McIntyre. Dr. Vinnie Shah also committed suicide after being blackmailed from Zoe by giving her drugs to sell to pay for her families rent, amongst other things.^[3]

2005

In 2005, when Ruth came back from Italy, she told Robbie Macfarlane she had been married, however he didn't believed her until Marty actually turned up and they proclaimed their love to everyone. Local hardman McCabe also showed his softer side when his daughter Natalie Stewart, who had downs syndrome, turned up. Bubba Law and Declan Hartley's affair was discovered and wrecked Abbi and Declan's marriage, and Robyn Hunter was left in pieces as her partner Mac got together with a much younger Zoe Cullen. This led to Alice wanting to revenge and in order to do this she downloaded child pornography on Mac's laptop, leading herself to get six months in prison, and Alisha arrived in Shieldinch to carry on Vinnie's work, and her brother's lives. Alanna had yet more problems as her abusive and alcoholic father, Alex turned up in Shieldinch to haunt her, however he suffering was over when he caused his own death as his caravan went up in flames, with Raymond, Roisin and Alanna narrowly escaping it. Soon the devious Archie Buchanan wormed his way back into Gina's life after his affair with her sister Eileen, and Heather got the shock of her life when her estranged husband Duncan turned up with her daughter Freya! Franco's secret son, Luca came from Italy to meet his estranged family but his presence caused a lot of trouble, and he wasn't the only one when predatory Mac turned his attentions to young Nicki, which led to his family forcing him out of Shieldinch for good. Michelle and Kevin took Bob for everything he had, eventually robbing him and escaped Shieldinch to an unknown location with baby Rochelle. Della then gave birth to Lewis Cope's baby, but Billy still wanted to be a proper Dad too him. Terrified Scarlett who was shoved into a van by McCabe, met up with her jailbird son Stevie, and Ruth's mental health took a turn for the worse as she made policeman Harry Black's life hell after making allegations against him and she spiralled out of control after taking things out on those who are closest to her.^[4]

2011

Scarlett diagnosed with Ovarian cancer. Lenny Murdoch returns in 2011 and gets involved in a storyline where his daughter Amber is having money troubles with McCabe which leads to Amber shooting McCabe and McCabe's mother wanting to hunt Lenny down for thinking he killed her "precious"son so she sends her daughter to spy on him as Lenny tries to take control over McCabe's empire. McCabe's mother supposedly died after she failed to set Lenny on fire and her daughter Vivian gives DCI Craig Donald names of contacts her brother McCabe had so that Donald can take them down.

2012

The Lenny Story continues as Gabriel Brodie gets involved and Lenny sends Gabriel to spy on Sean Kennedy by working for him who is pimping out local prostitutes and is supposedly a rival to Lenny's predecessor Thomas McCabe. Sean Kennedy starts to target Michael Brodie who is in jail for killing Cammy who had Michael's daughter Nicole under his grip and Cammy was supposedly one of Kennedy's henchmen. Kennedy is then murdered by Raymond Henderson by a blow to the head with a fire poker. Raymond then proceeds to stage a gas leak in the Tall Ship with Kennedy's Zippo Lighter set on the ground alight as the gas leaks in. The gas leak causes the Tall Ship to blow up. in the aftermath Raymond never got arrested but Sean's father Billy starts to turn up having Vengeance on his mind kidnapping Stevie Burns at first and then got arrested then was released and tried to get a new deal out of his son's arch-rival Lenny Murdoch.

Awards and nominations

• Audience Award was specifically for Most Popular Television Programme.

References

External links

• River City at BBC Programmes
• River City at the Internet Movie Database