I Was in Byker Grove

NewcastleWorld

With '90s TV favourite Byker Grove to be rebooted for the 21st century, and the original show set to be made available on streaming, we spoke to some of the stars of its original run.

Transcript

00:00Oh my god, I can't believe I'm still getting recognised from Biker Grove 20-odd years later.

00:04It's quite mad, really.

00:07The 1990s, longer ago than some of us like to think they were.

00:11The BBC children's drama Biker Grove ran through that decade.

00:15We're still linked to the show by the presence on TV of its most famous alumni, Anton Deh.

00:21Okay.

00:22So we're going for chips then?

00:24Is he right?

00:25Having a pie?

00:27Is he right?

00:28I might have a tarantula in butter.

00:30What do you think?

00:31All right.

00:35You've been like this all day. What's the matter?

00:36And it's through Anton Deh that a version of it is set to return.

00:40We've teamed up with the clever telly people at Fullwell 73 to work on a reboot.

00:45We've chatted to a couple of the leads from the original show about their experiences.

00:49So I played Claire, I think it's... was it Claire Rivers?

00:52My god, that's so bad that I still got...

00:54I'm sure it was Claire Rivers and she was...

00:58an up-and-coming DJ.

01:00A bit like myself.

01:03And she looked after her dad who had multiple sclerosis.

01:06That was her main storyline throughout the four or five years I was there.

01:09I knew a little bit about multiple sclerosis because my grandma has it.

01:13So I didn't have to do too much research into that.

01:16But I did meet a group of young carers off the back of doing that part.

01:21I had to do like a meet-and-greet at a museum.

01:24I think it was like the Hancock Museum or the Discovery Museum in Newcastle.

01:27And it was quite an eye-opener to what it was really like for some of these kids and what they

01:30were doing.

01:31And I think Bitey Grove portrayed that really, really quite well.

01:35Put it across into the role I was doing, definitely.

01:37Well, my kids have watched Bitey Grove on YouTube and are completely like,

01:42what are you doing?

01:43Why did you do that?

01:44Did you have no phones?

01:45Did you have no tablets?

01:46What's the internet not about?

01:48Why did you go to this place?

01:49So Bitey Grove was basically a youth club.

01:51That's so kids from all walks of life experience different things that kids and teenagers go

01:59through on a daily basis.

02:01I think Bitey Grove took quite a lot of risks with regards to the storylines that they used

02:06to put out there.

02:07For people that were watching it, at the time it was so groundbreaking in the storylines.

02:14You know, we had the first gay kiss on kids' TV and it might have been as tame as anything.

02:18And my kids would be like, is that anything?

02:21Like they'd be laughing about that now.

02:22It's nothing.

02:23It was a kiss on the cheek.

02:24Now it would be water off a duck's back.

02:26Everyone's a lot more accepting.

02:29We live in a much more diverse, multicultural society, which is great.

02:32And that's how things should be.

02:34And Bitey Grove tried to push that out there as to this is how people live

02:38and this is what people want to be.

02:41And it was kind of frowned upon a little bit.

02:43We're talking about what was the 90s when I was in it.

02:45Things weren't as open as what they were.

02:47Whereas now people would just be like, ma, that's fine.

02:50They're gay.

02:51Yeah, great.

02:52You know, and that's really good.

02:54But Bitey Grove, I think, kind of led the way a little bit to things like that,

02:58being a bit more accepting in children's television.

03:00You know, teen pregnancy, it covered really big topics in a time where people didn't have access to that.

03:07It was talking about things that people didn't, we didn't have social media.

03:11So when people watch, when young kids watch Bitey Grove and maybe they saw themselves in the character

03:16and the character's struggles or difficulties, it felt, it felt like, it felt familiar.

03:21So my memory of how I first got into Bitey Grove was a friend of mine had been an extra in Bitey Grove,

03:28a lad I went to school with.

03:31I wanted to get a paper round.

03:33My dad would let me get a paper round.

03:37So I thought, oh, Johnny made a bit of cash on that Bitey Grove.

03:40I'm going to write in.

03:41And in my letter, I put a photograph of myself and just said,

03:44if you've got any auditions or any extra parts, could I be considered?

03:49And that was literally how everything started for me.

03:51Well, I was around, I must have been 10 or 11 and I wanted to be an actor.

03:58I had decided, I mean, my dad was a welder, my mum worked in a bank.

04:02I don't know where it came from.

04:03I did not come from some starry stage screen family or anything like that.

04:08I was like, I'm going to be an actor, is what I would say.

04:11And I wrote a letter to the casting department of Bitey Grove.

04:15And then on my 30th birthday, I was actually given this letter on a canvas.

04:18And it's just the cutest and most hilarious thing.

04:21And I wrote this letter, it said, dear casting department.

04:24It was Lady Called Dee. Dee had Dee. I would like to have a part in Biker Grove.

04:29And I have, I put on it, I am not shy one bit.

04:33And they did actually get in touch with me because Biker Grove was always about normal kids

04:40from normal schools that didn't necessarily have that stage and screen background.

04:46And they got me in for auditions.

04:47And I auditioned, I think about five times, five or six times for a different part.

04:53And it was, I can't remember actually what the part was, but I didn't get it.

04:57And about six months later, they wrote a part in for me.

05:01And I came in as Emma Miller and I was in it for seven years.

05:05So that letter, it was the start of it all.

05:08I think I was four or five years.

05:12I can't remember if I was 19 or 20-ish the last episode I did.

05:15And that had been a cameo where I went back for one episode of a character who'd been killed off,

05:19as they do. So yeah, about four or five years I was on the show.

05:23The cast and crew at Biker were, it sounds horribly cliched, but we really were a big family.

05:30We spent more time there than we often did at school or with our family sometimes.

05:35And so we became very close very quickly.

05:39Biker Grove was a huge thing for me.

05:41It completely changed the course of my whole life.

05:44All I wanted to do was be a PE teacher. I love sport. I love fitness.

05:50And that's kind of the path I always wanted to go down.

05:53Not that I'm saying that's a bad career. Of course it isn't.

05:55I'd probably be a lot more stable in the acting industry to do that.

05:58But it led me on to some amazing things, some amazing opportunities.

06:05Obviously, I've met some really good friends off it.

06:08I've travelled the world because of it.

06:09I was fortunate enough to still work. Not everybody gets to go out and work after Biker Grove.

06:15Not everybody wants to, mind. Some people loved it, but that wasn't for me.

06:19So I kind of carried on filming different programmes and did theatre tours.

06:24And yeah, so for me, it was a massive stepping stone.

06:27And of course we'll have that on deck. I mean, how lucky are we?

06:31We talked about it in the cast.

06:33You know, we would always say, I wonder if they'll bring it back.

06:36And I'm really excited. I mean, I think it's in good hands.

06:41Ant & Dec are decent lads, nice lads, and they get it.

06:45And they've always maintained a kind of...

06:50They've always known about, you know, they've never forgot their roots.

06:53And they've always maintained a relationship with Biker Grove people.

06:56You know, people from their generation, cast crew and things like that.

06:59And I think that makes me feel like it's in safe hands.

07:02They get what that was about. That show was about those normal kids.

07:06It was about giving young kids from the North East a chance to shine.

07:10I'm excited that the North East is going to get that.

07:14You know, it's great to see that.

07:15And I hope that there'll be, you know, this whole new generation of young people

07:19that are excited about what is going to happen next with it.

07:23And I'm excited to see what they do with it.

07:25I think the revival of Biker Grove is a really positive thing for Tiny and Weir.

07:31For both in front and behind the camera.

07:33Remember, everybody who works in television doesn't necessarily want to be in front of the camera.

07:38So for people who want to get into production, design, costume design, makeup,

07:42it's going to create quite a lot of local jobs in TV.

07:45Instead of a lot of people have to go to Manchester or London.

07:49For me, the revival, I think it'll be a lot more diverse than it was when I was in it.

07:54It'll be a lot more open to things that we spoke about earlier.

07:57Times have changed.

07:58People are a lot more accepting of differences, if you like, and diversity.

08:05And I really hope that it is authentic.

08:08I hope everyone's from Sunderland or Newcastle or Durham or locally,

08:13it's not someone being brought in with a bad accent or being cast because of who they are.

08:18So that accent doesn't matter.

08:19So I really hope it keeps that Geordie, North East feel.

08:23That's the thing for me.

08:24That's what I really would like to see from it.

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