Would you send your kids to Waterloo Road? (Waterloo Road)

Member Name: Holidaying

Product:	Waterloo Road
Date:	24/03/09 (144 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Drama.

Disadvantages: None.

Waterloo Road is the title of a BBC television programme that is based on a school of the same name. The programme is now in its fourth series and can be seen on BBC 1 at 8pm on Wednesdays. The programme lasts for one hour, and it is one of the best hours on television in my opinion.

The programme follows the lives of the staff and students of the Manchester based secondary school. Through the four series, the programme has explored various issues that schools face. In this current series, they have looked at guns in schools. Although we know this to be more of a problem in countries outside of the UK, these stories make headlines and I think it good that they're on tv before they happen here, perhaps so that people don't become complacent about living in this country. In a previous series, the issue of a gay teacher was discussed, and in the series previous to that there were issues of knife crime.

The show is not all about such heavy issues though, and there are some nice relationships between the students, and between the staff that can become the focus of an episode or several. For example, two popular students, Dante and Chlo, got married at school and in the current series they are expecting a child.

The show has some quite famous actors in it. In the first and second series, the headtacher, Jack Rimmer, was played by a man that you may recognise from the hit television show Cutting It, Jason Merrells, and the character of Kim Campbell, who has just been brought back in to the show, is played by Angela Griffin. Denise Welch plays a very funny character called Steph Haydock. Neil Morrissey plays the deputy head Eddie Lawson in the current series. These great actors make the show even more watchable.

I enjoy the show so much because it is full of drama and you never know what is going to happen. The plot lines are brought in together well and the acting, from both the older actors that play the staff and the younger actors that play the students is great and means that the storylines are believable.

In all of the episodes I have seen (which is almost all of them), there have only been about two boring ones so I would definitely recommend this show to anyone who likes to see some drama on television.

Waterloo Road is on BBC 1 at 8pm on Wednesdays.

Summary: Recommended viewing.