Have you heard that the iconic BBC drama Waterloo Road is returning to our screens?
Waterloo Road originally aired from 2006 to 2015, and was one of the UK’s longest-running TV contemporary dramas – going on to launch the careers of many young and emerging actors, spawn plenty award-winning and highly-publicised storylines, draw in millions of viewers each week, and amass a cult-following of fans.
The show has consistently ranked among the top five most-watched shows for young audiences on the BBC iPlayer.
Set in a comprehensive school of the same name, Waterloo Road was famously set and filmed in Rochdale from series one until the end of series seven, before moving to the Scottish town of Greenock until the end of the show.
But, back in September, the BBC announced that the show would be rebooted and make a return to our TV screens.
With the spotlight on education in the UK now more intense than ever before, and with awareness of the challenges that teachers, parents and pupils face more pronounced amid the ongoing COVID pandemic, the BBC says Waterloo Road will use its rich history of “telling entertaining and gripping human stories”, while “tackling the important issues of the day”.
Waterloo Road originally aired from 2006 to 2015, and was one of the UK’s longest-running TV contemporary dramas / Credit: BBC & Shed Media
The BBC also says the revival of Waterloo Road will boost drama production skills in the North of England, with production for the show will take place right here in Greater Manchester.
“Waterloo Road will continue its reputation for kickstarting, supporting and enabling careers both in front of and behind the camera, in a truly inclusive way, from our base in Greater Manchester,” explained Executive Producer, Cameron Roach.
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Early next year, Rope Ladder Fiction and Wall to Wall Media will be establishing a major production base in the region, and alongside the production, they will also be starting a new ‘Production Development Trainee Scheme’, which aims to inspire and encourage “a new generation of talent” for the sector.
With the support and assistance of Screen Manchester, the six-month paid programme – which begins in February 2022 – will give eight people the Greater Manchester area the broadcast industry experience needing to access careers in the creative sector.
The show has consistently ranked among the top five most-watched shows for young audiences on the BBC iPlayer / Credit: BBC
The available trainee roles will cover key scripted departments across the drama – including production, sound, camera, make-up, costume, electrical, locations, art department, and music supervision – to allow the trainees an insight into the production process more broadly.
“Through production of Waterloo Road, we want to open doors and create valuable career opportunities for aspiring behind-the-scenes talent, and we look forward to unearthing the next generation of crew in the north on such an exciting and large-scale drama production in Greater Manchester,” explained Leanne Klein – Managing Director of Wall to Wall Media.
If you’re looking to be a part of the revival of Waterloo Road right here in Greater Manchester, then trainees will be required to work 11-hour days and must be able to commit to the six month engagement.
The production base will be in Salford, and the roles are seeking passionate, hardworking individuals who are keen to learn and take on responsibility on a working production.
Sir Ian McKellen pays emotional tribute to long-time friend and fellow northern actor Sir Patrick Stewart
Emily Sergeant
Sir Ian McKellen has paid an emotional tribute to his long-time friend and fellow northern actor, Sir Patrick Stewart, following his death.
Sir Patrick Stewart – who was born and bred in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, and is best-known for his theatre work alongside an illustrious 60-year screen career, taking on prominent roles in franchises such as Star Trek and X-Men – sadly passed away at the age of 86, with his death being announced publicly yesterday evening (29 October).
And now, his long-time friend and fellow northern actor, Sir Ian McKellen, has paid tribute.
Sir Patrick and Sir Ian shared the stage together countless times over their decades-long careers, but also famously starred alongside each other in the X-Men franchise, and subsequent Marvel movies, as Charles Xavier/Professor X and Magneto.
The tribute, shared across Sir Ian’s social media platforms, reads: “Before everything else, Patrick was defined by being born and bred in Yorkshire, the proud county in the north of England which he loved to the end. You could hear it in his accented voice and in the stern honesty with which he told you what he thought and felt. Yorkshiremen have no truck with half-truths or avoidance of big issues. He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love.
“We first met as ambitious young actors with the Royal Shakespeare Company half a century ago but we weren’t in the same productions.
“My first strong memory was a few years later, meeting him in the street in central London when he told me about an offer to take over a leading part in ‘Star Trek’. “But Patrick think of your stage career in the UK. Do you really want to risk getting lost in Hollywood for years and years?”
“Well, he took the risk and thank goodness for us all that he did, for not just his devoted Trekkies, but film and theatre audiences who marvelled at his using international celebrity to star in a string of cinema successes (‘X-Men’ of course) and in great classical plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Pinter and Beckett at Stratford-upon-Avon, in London’s West End and on Broadway.
“America was his adopted home, where he met his adored Sunny who has cared for him through sickness and health, through thick and thin.
“But he never forsook his origins: and the proudest achievement of the most respected and beloved actor of his generation on either side of the Atlantic, was his appointment as Chancellor of Huddersfield University in Yorkshire.”
Sir Patrick Stewart’s farewell performance will be in Avengers: Doomsday, which is being released in UK cinemas on 18 December 2026
Featured Image – Gage Skidmore (via Flickr)
TV & Showbiz
James Acaster reveals eerie song all Traitors contestants are forced to listen to before every roundtable
Emily Sergeant
James Acaster has revealed the eerie (and pretty surprising) song that all Traitors contestants are forced to listen to before every roundtable.
In case you’ve been living comfortably under a rock, you’ll probably be aware that comedian James Acaster is currently a contestant on this current season of BBC‘s smash-hit reality TV competition show, The Celebrity Traitors – a show that viewers in their millions are tuning into each week, with some big names on the cast.
Acaster is currently (spoiler alert… but it shouldn’t be at this point, we are several weeks in after all) one of three Traitors competing on the show, and he’s doing a pretty good job at it.
But we wonder how much of his success can be put down to the producers’ love of a certain song they like to play before every roundtable? Probably next to none, but it’s surprising to find out how much of an integral role the tune plays though.
The song we’re referring to here, it has been revealed, is ‘The Hanging Tree’ – a folk ballad made popular by The Hunger Games.
‘The Hanging Tree’, composed by James Newton Howard and Suzanne Collins, was famously sung by Jennifer Lawrence’s character Katniss Everdeen in the third instalment of the film franchise, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.
The lyrics are as follows:
Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where they strung up a man They say who murdered three? Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met at midnight In the hanging tree
So, as you can see, the song does make reference to ‘murder’, which is a key part of The Traitors game (not real murder, of course), but even with that context, we’re still not sure why the producers are keen to play it out before every roundtable.
During a viral TikTok clip from an on-stage Q&A this week, Acaster revealed the song’s usage to the audience: “You all walk in silence down the corridor, and you all sit down, and they don’t announce it’s gonna happen.
“The first time this will completely blindside you, but they do it every single roundtable. They play that song from The Hunger Games, that ‘coming to the tree’ song. Like acapella, Jennifer Lawrence.”
He continued: “It was every f***ing time, it was the only song we heard the whole time we were in there, and all day I would have it in my head constantly, everyone would, I’d go ‘have you got coming to the tree in your head?’ and they’d go ‘yes, it’s in my head, again’.”
Viewers who watch the show may have spotted the song being played in the background or transition between certain scenes, but now it’s been revealed that the contestants hear it too.
Who would’ve thought?
Featured Image – Euan Cherry / BBC / Studio Lambert
Emily Sergeant -
20th December 2021 
