The next series of children's drama Byker Grove will be the last, the BBC has announced.

The show's cancellation comes as the CBBC programme strand begins to focus on a primary school audience.

 

Controller of children's programmes Richard Deverell called it "a great programme for CBBC with some ground-breaking stories".

 

Byker Grove has been running for 17 years, and launched the careers of Ant and Dec, and actress Donna Air.

 

The drama, which is set in a Tyneside youth club, was first shown as a pilot in 1989. A full series was commissioned the following year.

 

It has featured several hard-hitting storylines, including drug addiction, teenage pregnancy and abortion.

 

In 1995, it became the first children's drama to tackle the subject of homosexuality, when Brett Adam's character, Noddy Fishwick, kissed another boy in the back of a cinema.

 

Launchpad for success

 

Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly played PJ and Duncan in the programme before graduating to a career in pop music.

 

More recently they have found success as the hosts of ITV1's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! and Saturday Night Takeaway. They recently made their film debut in Alien Autopsy.

 

The duo returned to Byker Grove in October 2000 to attend the funeral of youth club manager, Geoff, who died in an accidental gas explosion.

 

Other actors to have appeared in the series include Jill Halfpenny, Denise Welch and Roger Lloyd Pack.

 

The final series of Byker Grove will be broadcast in September on BBC One.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk

Never watched it......................................

nooooo wayyyyyyy!! We watched the first couple of episodes of the first series before my Mum banned us because she didn't think it was suitable. We watched it a couple of series after that for a few years.

 

Crikey that's a long time ago!! When it was Donna, Gil, Speedy, Nicola, Julie 7 Spuggy.

Am going to have to go on a picture hunt now!

^Grange Hill was more my thang!!

Spuggy -

 

Gil & Julie -

^Grange Hill was more my thang!!

 

we watched that too!! that didn't have any sufficiently racy storylines to ban us from!!!

 

it was the episode of Byker Grove where on of the boys put his hand up a girls top. I don't remember seeing him do it, but my Mum spotted it and banned us from watching it for ages.

True - Grange Hill was always pretty tame. It used to make me laugh how none of the kids uttered any expletives. Talk about unreal!!:laugh3:

 

"Flippin' 'eck, Tucker"........................one of the greatest lines of all time!!

It did have its moments thought. There was the storyline where Imelda the bully was going round shoving asbestos down people's backs.

^Well nowadays that would be enough to get you an asBO!!:rolleyes:

I only always caught the opening credits to Byker Grove :P Grange Hill was cool though :cool:

they should have chopped it 10 years ago.

i didnt even know it was still going!

The next series of children's drama Byker Grove will be the last' date=' [/quote']

 

GOOD!

:sweatdrop:

I thought that show ended years ago!! I used to watch way back in the day when ant and dec were in it, and also jill halfpenny.