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Celebrating Crossroads 2001 – The second series of ITV’s hotel soap from Carlton Television |
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News Archive |
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ARCHIVED NEWS STORIES FROM THE NATIONAL PRESS AND INTERNET |
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RUMOURS THAT CROSSROADS IS DUE TO RETURN… |
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Monday, April 10, 2000 The Guardian Lord Ali plans comeback for Crossroads
Crossroads, the soap with the shaky sets and shakier storylines, is poised to make a comeback. Lord Waheed Ali, the Carlton Television executive, is to put a proposal to ITV for a remake of the show. It is not clear whether the new version will feature the trademark closing sequence in which the credits criss-crossed the screen above the distinctive theme tune (once arranged by Paul McCartney), but Lord Ali insists it will be recognisably Crossroads. If accepted by ITV, which will soon have a daily soap slot that needs filling after Channel 5's successful bid for Home and Away, the show will be made at Carlton's studios in Nottingham. Lord Ali, Carlton's director of productions, said: "I want to do a soap. I very, very badly want to get that slot vacated by Home and Away." He said the new Crossroads was likely to be set in a hotel, rather than a motel - "I don't think we have motels any more, do we?" Lord Ali would not reveal whether he would reintroduce classic characters such as Benny, the odd-job man, but said that the new show would be aimed at a young audience - a pledge sure to strike fear into fans of the original, who blamed meddling producers for precipitating its decline. Dorothy Hobson, author of Crossroads - The Drama of a Soap Opera (now out of print), was delighted. A hotel was ideal for a soap, because it allowed for a good mix of permanent and visiting characters |
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April 11, 2001 The Independent `Crossroads', home of wooden acting and flimsy sets, rises from the grave
THE TELEVISION soap Crossroads, based on a Midlands motel, which became infamous for its dodgy scripts and even dodgier sets, could soon reopen for business. Detailed proposals to make an updated version of the classic daytime serial that ran for 24 years have been drawn up by Lord Alli, the director of productions for Carlton Television. Lord Alli said he "very badly" wanted to remake Crossroads to fill ITV's late- afternoon slot, which will be left vacant when the Australian soap Home and Away moves to Channel 5 next year. Carlton will formally submit the idea to ITV on 24 April, but the proposal was greeted with mixed feelings by its former cast and the critics. First launched in 1965, Crossroads drew audiences of 14 million at its peak, developing characters such as Benny Hawkins, the simple- minded handyman, and Meg Hunter, the hotel's first owner, who became national heroes. The series could be the latest in a string of remakes from the Sixties and Seventies, including The Avengers, The Saint and Mission: Impossible. Carlton also unveiled its television remake of the classic film The Railway Children yesterday, which will star Jenny Agutter, the original child lead, as the children's mother. Lord Alli, the former head of Planet 24, said he hoped to retain the Crossroads title and original theme music, written by Tony Hatch and later rerecorded by Paul McCartney's group Wings. Questions such as Benny's future have yet to be decided, he said. The series would be made in Carlton's Nottingham studios, written with a younger audience in mind. Lord Alli dismissed suggestions that its poor production standards should be retained. "I just don't buy into that. The reason why Crossroads works was because there were great storylines and the characters were great and believable," he said. Paul Henry, 54, who played Benny, remembered that viewers hung banners outside their homes stating "Benny is innocent" when his character was accused of a murder. "He was a great character to play because you could take every emotion to the extreme, he could lose his temper or get upset," he said. Rival soap magazines had opposing views. Paul Smith, of Soaplife, said his magazine was right to give Crossroads its Golden Turkey Award in January. "I think it's old ground," he said. "I think it would be sacrilege to bring it back." However, Wendy Granditer, of Inside Soap, said it was "a great idea". She said: "I would be very, very upset if it came back as a very slick programme. I think people quite liked the daytime hammyness of it. That would be part of its appeal." (Severin Carell) |
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The Telegraph Crossroads heads for comeback 12 years on
CROSSROADS, the television soap opera that came to an end 12 years ago, should be back in the near future. Lord Waheed Alli, Carlton Television's director of productions, is on the brink of submitting a proposal to ITV for a remake of the show. The motel-based production is best remembered for its shaky sets and even shakier acting. A spokesman for Carlton said yesterday: "We are one of a number of companies who are pitching ideas to ITV for a teatime soap. Although the proposal has been formed and agreed this end, it has not yet been submitted to ITV." She did confirm that the soap would be recognisably Crossroads and filmed at Carlton's studios in Nottingham. It is being earmarked to fill a daily soap slot on ITV that will be left when Home and Away moves to Channel 5. Lord Alli said the new Crossroads was likely to be set in a hotel, rather than a motel. He said: "I don't think we have motels any more, do we?" |
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Sunday, April 16, 2000 Observer Viewpoint Why is ITV threatening to resurrect Crossroads?
During video's first spring in the late Seventies, Radio Rentals advertised a new-fangled 'long-play' video recorder with the line 'It can take 16 episodes of Crossroads. (If you can)' Geddit? But if popular opinion didn’t think we could take 16 episodes of it then, why does Carlton think we can now? When Labour peer and Carlton TV executive Waheed Ali announced last week that he plans to resurrect Crossroads, we assumed he was having a laugh. Cue: the gruesome flashbacks - the genetically worrisome romance between Benny and Miss Diane; Meg waving her final goodbye beneath a headscarf on the QE2; Kate Robbins singing 'More Than In Love' from the dizzy heights of number two in the charts in 1981. All good, funny, newspaper-filling stuff, but he was winding us all up, wasn't he? Apparently not. Ali's slightly camp fantasy to revive the five/four/three-nights a week, motel soap seems sincere. But why bring back a show whose heyday was in the Seventies? Why revive a brand that means as much to the advertiser-friendly 18-25 year olds as Mint Cracknel and Baader-Meinhoff? Why resurrect something that was, not to put too fine a cultural point on it, crap? Putting aside the fact that Ali ran his own successful TV company, Planet 24, for six years - ergo, the sort of harebrained scheme he wakes up with at three in the morning might just work - Crossroads was without doubt popular crap. Throughout the Seventies, it attracted up to 16 million loyal viewers, peaking at 17.6 million in 1978. In 1976, Noele Gordon, who played matriarch Meg Richardson/Ryder/Mortimer was voted favourite female personality at the TV Times Awards for the seventh year running. In 1981, when news leaked out of 'wholesale changes' (including the axeing of Gordon), thousands wrote to Central Television to complain, and the Sun launched a Save Our Meg campaign. When ageing heart-throb David Hunter was written out in 1984, producer Phil Bowman received death threats. But the numbers tell a misleading story. Hurriedly made, poorly performed, perfunctorily directed, preposterously plotted - these are the virtues which stuck to Crossroads, rightly or wrongly. Wobbly sets, irritating theme tune, and set 'just outside Birmingham' for heaven's sake. Larry Grayson made two separate cameo appearances in it. Crossroads was Eddie’ The Eagle' Edwards in teatime serial form. Bringing it back in the twenty-first century - post 'Acorn Antiques', post Alan Partridge at the Linton Travel Tavern - smacks either of desperation, or, even worse irony. Kitsch TV nostalgia has become a plague on popular culture. In America, the thirty- and fortysomethingings who control the media remake favourite TV shows of their youth as multi-million dollar movies, and they're terrible (Wild Wild West, My Favourite Martian); so let’s not remake Crossroads as a TV Show. The precedent is not good. It would either have to be 'ironied-up' like last year's misfiring Mr. & Mrs. with Julian Clary (taken off within minutes), or played relatively straight like Channel 5's It's a Knockout - a great advert for just showing the original on UK Gold (or is that Mould?) and being done with it. Indeed nobody would argue with the decision to re-run all 4,510 episodes of old Crossroads, round the clock, on a loop, forever, on a dedicated digital cable channel called XR-TV (Crossroads TV) But a new Crossroads for Generation Y2K means revisiting the same minefield that maimed so many the first time round. Crossroads ran for 24 years from 1964 but its demise remains a cautionary tale. Gordon's dismissal in 1981 heralded the beginning of the end. ATV's programme controller, Charles Denton, and drama head Margaret Matheson decided that Crossroads should become 'less middle-aged' for the new decade. 'We have to bring in some new blood' said Denton, 'and point Crossroads in a new direction.' Uh-oh. Crossroads became more glamorous, with younger actress Gabrielle Drake taking over the motel in 1985, and two years later a complete facelift saw the show rebranded as Crossroads, Kings Oak, and conspicuously yuppiefied. New producer William Smethhurst had been appalled at a survey showing that Crossroads viewers read the Star, and he set about raising the 'audience profile'. But the experiment failed, and the soap was cancelled in 1988. When Crossroads was the same, it flourished. When it was different, it died. Bringing it back under the old name but with -presumably - a new thrusting, young, attractive cast would be a grave error; a nation forged in the white heat of camp irony after two hours at the Groucho Club that will surely end, like Meg on the QE2, in tears. |
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THE RETURN OF CROSSROADS IS CONFIRMED |
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30th August 2000 The Guardian Crossroads Confirmed
For fans of Benny and Miss Diane, the 12-year wait is over. Crossroads, the epitome of cheesy 1970s television, is returning to ITV as a daily daytime soap early next year. The new Crossroads will still be set just outside Birmingham, but the motel with the shaky walls is to be upgraded to a hotel - the Kings Oak - with a bar, restaurant, conference centre and beauty salon. ITV and producer Carlton are not revealing whether Benny and other characters from the original Crossroads will be returning, along with the dodgy scripts and production values and the distinctive theme tune. Casting is to begin in October and further details about the soap are expected nearer transmission. The production team for the 21st-century Crossroads will be based at Carlton's Nottingham centre and the drama is to be shot in the studio and on location. ITV's controller of daytime television, Maureen Duffy, said: "The new Crossroads will be absolutely of our time. It really will strengthen ITV's daytime schedule by providing our viewers with strong narrative dealing with the realities, issues and fun of everyday life." The commercial broadcaster has ordered a 12-month, five-day-a-week run of Crossroads. A second daily drama, United Productions' Trafalgar Road, has been commissioned to replace the early evening Australian soap Home and Away, which has been poached by Channel 5. Trafalgar Road will be set in south-east London and focuses on a group of friends "watching their children grow up when they haven't finished growing up themselves", according to a United spokeswoman. She added: "It's about parents wishing they were still teenagers and struggling to make sense of their lives. They have teenage kids who think they know everything." The original Crossroads ran for 24 years, from 1964 until 1988. Noele Gordon, who played the motel's matriarchal owner Meg, was voted favourite female personality in the TV Times awards seven years in a row during the show's 70s heyday. When Gordon was written out of Crossroads in 1981 thousands wrote to producer Central Television to complain, and the Sun launched the Save Our Meg campaign. The 1980s brought a slow, inexorable decline in the soap's ratings, despite several changes of direction aimed at reviving it. A younger, more glamorous actor, Gabrielle Drake, took over the motel in 1985. Two years later the show was rebranded Crossroads, Kings Oak, in a last-ditch attempt to attract a more upmarket following. |
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August 31, 2001 The Independent `Crossroads' is back. But why don't the sets shake? And where is Benny?
ONE OF Britain's best-loved - and most derided - television soaps is to return. The new Crossroads will launch next spring as the centrepiece of the ITV 2001 daytime schedule, the channel said yesterday. . The soap opera set in a motel outside Birmingham,which made "a Benny" a household term of derision, is to become a weekday fixture. Some of the old characters will be back, but it is not known yet whether Benny himself is among them. The legendary shaky sets, however, will be absent. Steve Hewlett, the director of programmes at Carlton, said: "I am hoping it will become as iconic as the original, but for things that were good - the warmth, the sense of engagement - not the wobbly walls, which it won't have. "It will be a class drama. It's a thoroughly modern soap, very much based on now, but it's got a history and in terms of history, establishing a place in people's heads is one of the hardest things for programme makers," he said. The soap ran for 24 years until 1988, gaining audiences of 18 million in its Seventies heyday as well as a cult following. The new Crossroads will still be set in a hotel outside Birmingham, although it will be filmed in Nottingham. The revival was the brainchild of Carlton's head of programming, Lord Alli, who said his passion for the soap had begun in childhood. "I watched it with my mother and I think it's one of those things which you could experience as real family viewing," he said. "It was not as gritty as some, you didn't feel you wanted to commit suicide afterwards, yet you didn't have the non-stop comedy of Coronation Street ... it was accessible, and easy viewing for the family." Lord Alli said he wanted to maintain that feeling for a modern audience. The channel is said to be putting "significant resources" behind the soap, which will go out in half-hour episodes every weekday. Commissioned for a year, it has been storylined but not yet fully scripted. Lord Alli wants the soap still to be based around a "strong matriarchal character" like Meg Richardson, played last time by the late Noele Gordon. Several of the original cast members have been "pencilled in", although talks are continuing. But the theme tune, the last version of which was arranged by Paul McCartney's band Wings, is likely to remain. "Lots of our creative people have ideas for the theme tune, but I'm going to try to keep the old one," said Lord Alli. "The other thing I liked was the way the credits rolled - up and down and side to side. That will be my gesture to the old programme." ITV also gave details of its replacement for the Australian soap Home and Away. Trafalgar Road, to be shown at teatime, set in south- east London, will feature a group of young families. Nick Elliott, controller of drama, said: "Trafalgar Road is a fresh and vibrant drama about today's young families in London."(Jojo Moyes) |
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31st August 2000 The Telegraph
Return of Crossroads, the world's wobbliest motel
CROSSROADS, the famously rickety soap opera set in a Midlands motel, is returning to ITV but without its most memorable star. Benny, the woolly-hatted odd-job man, has been written out of an updated version which will be set in an upmarket hotel with a health spa and conference centre. The character, who was played by Paul Henry - now a publican in Birmingham - was deemed to be out of date by the show's producers. The series will, however, see the return of at least two of the original cast: Jane Rossington, who played the boss's daughter, Jill Chance, and Kathy Staff, better known as Nora Batty in Last of the Summer Wine, as the cleaner Doris Luke. The original show, which ran for 24 years and attracted up to 16 million viewers until it was axed in 1988, was known for its shaky sets and hammy acting. Lord Alli, the Labour peer and managing director of Carlton Productions, which is making the series, said that the new version would not be "a kitsch, post-modernist" remake of the original. He said: "The idea is to create a family show that will attract both young and older viewers." The new Crossroads would sit somewhere between the unreal world of Coronation Street and the gritty realism of EastEnders, he added. Maureen Duffy, ITV's controller of daytime television, said that the new series would be "absolutely of our time" and would deal with the "issues and fun of everyday life". Crossroads, which will go out on weekdays, will be the highlight of ITV's flagging afternoon schedule and was one of two new soap operas unveiled by the network. The second, Trafalgar Road, is set in south-east London and focuses on a group of young families. It will be shown at teatime, replacing Home and Away. David Liddiment, ITV's director of programmes who had invited production companies to bid for a new teatime soap, defended soaps, saying they "play an important role in connecting channels with their audience". |
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August 31st 2000 The Independent Crossroads is back, but why don’t the sets shake?
ONE OF Britain's best-loved - and most derided - television soaps is to return. The new Crossroads will launch next spring as the centrepiece of the ITV 2001 daytime schedule, the channel said yesterday. . The soap opera set in a motel outside Birmingham, which made "a Benny" a household term of derision, is to become a weekday fixture. Some of the old characters will be back, but it is not known yet whether Benny himself is among them. The legendary shaky sets, however, will be absent. Steve Hewlett, the director of programmes at Carlton, said: "I am hoping it will become as iconic as the original, but for things that were good - the warmth, the sense of engagement - not the wobbly walls, which it won't have. "It will be a class drama. It's a thoroughly modern soap, very much based on now, but it's got a history and in terms of history, establishing a place in people's heads is one of the hardest things for programme makers," he said. The soap ran for 24 years until 1988, gaining audiences of 18 million in its Seventies heyday as well as a cult following. The new Crossroads will still be set in a hotel outside Birmingham, although it will be filmed in Nottingham. The revival was the brainchild of Carlton's head of programming, Lord Alli, who said his passion for the soap had begun in childhood. "I watched it with my mother and I think it's one of those things which you could experience as real family viewing," he said. "It was not as gritty as some, you didn't feel you wanted to commit suicide afterwards, yet you didn't have the non-stop comedy of Coronation Street ... it was accessible, and easy viewing for the family." Lord Alli said he wanted to maintain that feeling for a modern audience. The channel is said to be putting "significant resources" behind the soap, which will go out in half-hour episodes every weekday. Commissioned for a year, it has been storylined but not yet fully scripted. Lord Alli wants the soap still to be based around a "strong matriarchal character" like Meg Richardson, played last time by the late Noele Gordon. Several of the original cast members have been "pencilled in", although talks are continuing. But the theme tune, the last version of which was arranged by Paul McCartney's band Wings, is likely to remain. "Lots of our creative people have ideas for the theme tune, but I'm going to try to keep the old one," said Lord Alli. "The other thing I liked was the way the credits rolled - up and down and side to side. That will be my gesture to the old programme." ITV also gave details of its replacement for the Australian soap Home and Away. Trafalgar Road, to be shown at teatime, set in south- east London, will feature a group of young families. Nick Elliott, controller of drama, said: "Trafalgar Road is a fresh and vibrant drama about today's young families in London." |
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THE BUILD-UP….CAST, CREW AND LOCATIONS…. |
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Wednesday, September 27, 2000 The Guardian Kay Patrick to series produce the Crossroads
Carlton Television has announced that Kay Patrick is to series produce the reborn Crossroads when it returns next year. Patrick has series produced Sunburn for BBC1, and has worked as a director on Eastenders, Brookside, Emmerdale and Coronation Street. |
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Friday, October 27, 2000 Ananova Barbara Dickson snubs Crossroads
Barbara Dickson has turned down a role in Crossroads. Jonathon Powell, director of drama for Carlton Television, told the Media Guardian they had approached the former Band of Gold star about a role in the remake of the 1970s soap. But Mr. Powell said she had declined. Producers of the show are in the early stages of looking for actors to appear in the soap which will return to ITV in a daytime slot next year. |
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Friday, October 27, 2000 Guardian Unlimited / The Guardian Dickson snubs Crossroads remake
Actress and singer Barbara Dickson has turned down the offer of a role in Carlton's ITV remake of 1970s daytime soap Crossroads. Carlton director of drama Jonathan Powell confirmed that an approach had been made to Ms Dickson in the early stages of casting the returning soap, but said the actress would not be appearing in the show. Crossroads is due to return to ITV daytime early next year in what is expected to be an early afternoon slot. Actress and singer Barbara Dickson has turned down the offer of a role in Carlton's ITV remake of 1970s daytime soap Crossroads. Carlton director of drama Jonathan Powell confirmed that an approach had been made to Ms Dickson in the early stages of casting the returning soap, but said the actress would not be appearing in the show. Crossroads is due to return to ITV daytime early next year in what is expected to be an early afternoon slot. Actress and singer Barbara Dickson has turned down the offer of a role in Carlton's ITV remake of 1970s daytime soap Crossroads. Carlton director of drama Jonathan Powell confirmed that an approach had been made to Ms Dickson in the early stages of casting the returning soap, but said the actress would not be appearing in the show. Crossroads is due to return to ITV daytime early next year in what is expected to be an early afternoon slot. |
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Friday, November 17, 2000 Guardian Unlimited Lucy Rouse's TV Gossip
Bet you can't wait for Crossroads to come back on? Television just hasn't been the same experience since those wobbly sets and green knitted woolen hats left the screen. (Well, OK, Dr Who continued into the 1990s, but it just wasn't the same after Tom Baker was it?) But the motel will be back on the box before the middle of next year, bringing laughs back to teatime soap-watchers everywhere. What you also might not know is that the team making Crossroads over at Carlton is producing the show for about as much as they did the first time around. Those task-masters at ITV ordered not just one teatime soap, but two, a few months back- and they insisted that all producers sign contracts to demonstrate their programmes within strict budget limits. But it works out at an annual income of about £10m for Carlton, so it's not all bad news. The other sad fact about the doom motel, though, is that the architect behind Crossroads revival won't be around to see his new baby hit the screen. You might not have had Lord Waheed Ali down as a typical Benny fan - but you'd be wrong. The Labour peer was head of Carlton Productions until earlier this week when the parent company's latest boardroom coup left him without a seat. Ali had joined Carlton with his production company Planet 24, which Carlton bought a couple of years ago. His brief was to improve Carlton's reputation for programme-making - so he decided to bring back Crossroads. Shame he isn't working there any more, you might think. Another fruit of the Carlton cornucopia of delights - Inspector Morse - came to a fitting end on TV this week. Some 60 per cent of viewers tuned in to watch the demise of the wizened one. So ITV should be well happy. But not according to one insider who this week admitted to us: "It wasn't a fabulous production, to be quite honest." |
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18th November 2000 The Telegraph Villagers find themselves divided by Crossroads THE selection of a picturesque village as the setting for the return of the 1970s soap opera Crossroads has split the community into those who think it will bring fame and others appalled at being associated with it. Carlton wants Redmile, in the vale of Belvoir, Leics, as the fictional Kings Oak. Most indoor action will be shot in a studio but location work will be in the main street. Vanessa Rawlings-Jackson, a marketing consultant in the arts, said yesterday: "We are not talking here about a dramatisation of Dickens or Jane Austen - this is crap soap. What's in it for the village? In return for traffic congestion, litter and disruption we will become a focus of tourists of the kind who have their pictures taken outside the Rovers Return and wept for Deidre." The Peacock, Redmile's small hotel, will double as the infamous motel that was - and probably will be again - forever buzzing with outrageous romance and scurrilous plotting. Sixty-five episodes are planned to start with and the series is scheduled to replace the Australian soap Home and Away. Filming is due to start next month. This naturally delights Keith Parton, the Peacock's manager, and Helen Mackay, landlady of the nearby Windmill pub. Some residents admit to fancying the reflected glory it will bring but those who value tranquillity are far from pleased and are making their view heard with a petition. Its sponsor, Basil Collin, a retired company director, is organising a meeting on Tuesday at which residents will be invited to put their concerns to Idris Ahmed, Carlton's locations manager. Mr Ahmed probably thought all was settled by his visit to Redmile on Oct 21, when he secured a favourable vote at a parish meeting, but some villagers question that meeting's status. Kenneth Brockway, the council clerk, said that between 70 and 80 were present. Others claimed that it was only 40 to 50 of a population of about 400. Mrs Rawlings-Jackson said: "The information given by Mr Ahmed was insufficient. He gave a very rosy picture of what would be involved. I know, because I once agreed to have my former home used as a setting for Boon and it was horrible. I wouldn't let TV people near my home again for £100,000. You have to keep quiet and out of sight and the disruption and mess is dreadful. The TV people have lots of money, so they will be able to afford to pay the police to stop traffic and the residents will just have to put up with it." Carlton offered to pay the parish. Mr Brockworth said this would go towards a play area or bus shelter. He wouldn't say how much. Mr Collin puts it at £200. Carlton said: "We were surprised to hear that the villagers have these worries and have contacted them and arranged to go back and explain what is involved. There will be a small amount of disruption in Redmile but 95 per cent of Crossroads will be shot in the studio." Leicestershire county council said Carlton had told it that filming would shortly begin at Sutton crossroads, Notts, near Redmile. "The company has been asked to contact the council should roads in Leicestershire be affected. No contact has been made at present." |
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Tuesday, November 21, 2000 BBC Nottingham Online More Cross words for Crossroads
Residents from a Nottinghamshire village are meeting TV executives today to decide whether the new version of Crossroads can be filmed near their homes. Carlton Television says that Redmile in the Vale of Bevoir is ideal setting for the fictional village of Kings Oak in the company's new version of the soap serial. The famous series is to be re-launched next year and the TV company wants to use the village near Bingham for external shots. The village would appear in five of the65 scheduled episodes but some residents of Redmile aren't happy with the idea and are afraid that they'll be swamped with tourists. They say that they have not been given any clear idea of what the disruption to their lifestyle is likely to entail or what traffic problems may arise. However, others, such as Steve Hughes, the landlord of the Peacock Pub believe it will be good for business. It's hoped that a meeting between TV executives and villagers taking place today will sort out some of the problems and anxieties. Crossroads is due to begin filming very shortly but it'll be up to the residents of Redmile to decide whether their village is to become the new home of the famous soap. |
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Wednesday 22nd November 2000 The Telegraph Dead end for Crossroads TELEVISION executives failed yesterday to placate villagers who object to their homes being used as a backdrop for a new series of Crossroads. Residents of Redmile, Leics, decided to ballot the whole community on whether they should co-operate after a meeting in which they were addressed by Carlton TV representatives. They are concerned about disruption to village life caused by the filming and tourists. One of them, Vanessa Rawlings-Jackson, said: "They are looking for a cheap location and will make millions flogging the soap around the world. First, they said there would be 65 episodes but now they are talking of 240 and filming on half a day every week. It's time the villagers stopped to consider what they are getting themselves into. "It will be very difficult for them to film here if they encounter a lot of ill-feeling and hostility." A Carlton spokesman said: "We are not commenting on locations. I can only confirm that shooting starts in the studio in December." |
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Novemeber 25, 2000 The Independent Villagers in a lather over the invasion of TV soaps cameras
THE TELEVISION programme Crossroads will return without many of its defining features - from the woolly-hatted character Benny to the credits rolling diagonally across the screen - but events this week suggest hitches during filming are not all in the past. Despite having ploughed millions into a custom-built set in Nottingham, Carlton TV will also be filming from Wednesday in the idyllic Leicestershire village of Redmile, where it will run into a campaign of fierce resistance. Redmile is the new setting for the soap's fictional Kings Oak village. Such is the zest for a remake of the old ATV soap that 240 episodes have been commissioned. That will probably bring Carlton TV to the village every week for a year. But the people who live there are not pleased with the razzmatazz. A meeting two weeks ago attracted 80 of the village's 240 adults to a local pub, and an anti-Crossroads petition was raised. On Tuesday morning, the show's producers arrived tomeet the villagers in one of the protester's houses. (There is no parish hall, the church heating is on the blink and the two pubs weren't open.) The Carlton shilling helped to smooth things over. A pounds 200 contribution towards amenities was promised to the parish council for each of the filming visits. There are also separate financial arrangements with the people who live in the village's beautiful "church corner", where The parish council says most of the residents are in favour of the filming but object to the number of episodes, of which 65 were expected initially. And there's a question of content. Vanessa Rawlings-Jackson, a resident and arch- opponent, said: "We were told it will go out before the watershed, but so does Grange Hill, The Bill and Emmerdale and there have been rape scenes and murders in those programmes, which we do not want in this village." The villagers were apparently unmoved by the wealth brought by the long- running television series Last of the Summer Wine to Holmfirth, West Yorkshire. There, after 27 years of filming, life has begun to imitate art. Compo's Cafe and the Wrinkled Stocking Tearooms, modelled on the series, compete for 20,000 tourists a year, and a museum to the series has been set up in Compo's "home". Holmfirth's residents were devastated when Kathy Staff - alias Nora Batty - left the series last year. Sonia Lee, a villager, said."I have no idea if they will still use my house. My back steps have come to be known as Nora's steps," But even Holmfirth has its disgruntled locals. A dam in the area was allegedly polluted when two cars were dumped in it for one scene. The resulting protest reflected well the delicate business of location filming. Twenty miles away in Hadfield, north Derbyshire, tempers were so frayed when a 60-strong BBC crew arrived to film The League of Gentlemen that the Glossop Chronicle ran a story headlined "Plague of Gentlemen". A community meeting was called to discuss what to do if the producers returned for another series. An inhabitant of Goathland, the North York Moors town where ITV's Heartbeat is set, said she would not have bought a cottage there had she known it was to become the programme's location. "I have had to put up net curtains because it's like living in a goldfish bowl," she said. "You go to the local shop for groceries and you can't get in for visitors looking for souvenirs." But there are benefits once the cameras have gone. A research paper last year shows that visitors numbers to a place increase by 77 per cent, on average, five years after the release of a film made there. The number of visitors to Cornwall leapt by 10,000 a year after Poldark came out in the Seventies, while southern Florida saw an almost 20 per cent rise attributed to Miami Vice. Redmile's predicament best matches that of Esholt, a village near Bradford where Emmerdale was filmed for 10 years until producers announced that three episodes a week were too much and the location was moved to Leeds. "The TV crews carried a bag of money to persuade people to move their cars," an Esholt resident said. "My friend got terribly irate when they hissed `Quiet on the set'. She said, `It's not a set, it's my lawn'." At one point, there were 500 coach trips a year to the Woolpack Inn in Esholt. The fact that Redmile's depleted farming industry needs all the help it can get has done nothing to sway the views of residents. But they are beginning to realise they have little legal clout. "Other than the Human Rights Act we have no privacy laws at our disposal," said John Rawling, Redmile's parish council chairman. (Ian Herbert) |
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FILMING BEGINS |
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Tuesday, November 28, 2000 BBC News Cameras Roll on Crossroads Remake
Filming has started on the new version of ITV soap opera Crossroads which was axed in 1988. The soap is being filmed at Carlton's studios in Nottingham and on location in the surrounding area. The Series started in 1965, based around a fictional motel, but it was axed after more than 4,500 episodes. The re-vamped version will feature a number of actors from the original run. Jane Rossington, who spoke the opening line in the very first episode of the original series, returns as Jill Harvey. She said: "To have been part of a programme which made television history was wonderful. To be back at Crossroads as the series is reborn is really exciting." The soap's makers have promised a series of powerful new characters and storylines. No Benny But executive producer Sharon Bloom said it would also retain "many of the aspects that made Crossroads such a well-loved programme for so many years". Street actress Sherrie Hewson will play receptionist Virginia Raven in the Crossroads Motel. Other confirmed cast members include Kathy Staff, who returns as Doris Luke, and Tony Adams, appearing as Adam Chance. Former Hollyoaks star James McKenzie Robinson and actor Toby Sawyer have also been signed up. Fans of the soap will be distressed to hear that handyman Benny, played by Paul Henry, will not return, despite the actor's desire to figure in the new version. Earlier in the year Henry said he would love to return to the soap. |
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Tuesday, November 28, 2000 Guardian Unlimited / The Guardian Crossroads confirms star line-up for TV comeback
Actress Jane Rossington, who spoke the opening line in Crossroads 36 years ago, is set to return to the ITV soap as Jill Harvey. Joining her in the new Crossroads line-up are former Coronation Street actress Sherrie Hewson, who plays receptionist Virginia Raven. "To have been part of a programme which made television history was wonderful - and to be back at Crossroads as the series is reborn is really exciting," said Miss Rossington. Other confirmed members of the cast include Last of the Summer Wine actress Kathy Staff, who plays Doris Luke, and Tony Adams as Adam Chance. Jane Gurnett will play Kate Russell, the owner of Crossroads. Former Hollyoaks actors James McKenzie Robinson and Toby Sawyer have also been signed up. The new Crossroads has gone into production at Carlton's studios in Nottingham and on location in the surrounding area after a break of 12 years. Series executive producer Sharon Bloom promised viewers that the new show, which will be screened on ITV five nights a week from next spring, would be well worth watching. "We'll be introducing some powerful new characters and storylines whilst retaining many of the aspects that made Crossroads such a well-loved programme for so many years," she said. |
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Wednesday, 29th November, 2000 Daily Mail Crossroads turns on the Glamour
Its name evokes an era of creaking plots, creaking dialogue and, best of all, creaking sets. Crossroads, as even its legions of devoted fans might concede, was rarely renowned for its glamour. But not any more. The soap set in the giddy world of motel machinations, and which checked out of viewers' lives in 1988, began filming again this week with an injection of high-octane sex appeal. For example, and fans of the cult soap should brace themselves here, the role as the new handyman at the Midlands most famous motel has gone to a heart-throb actor sporting a mane of long dark hair and fashionable goatee. Luke Walker, 25, from Birmingham, will follow in the footsteps of Paul Henry's nice-but-dim oddjob man, Benny, whose trademark woolly hat became as famous as the motel itself during the soap's 1970s' heyday. Luke's character, Bradley Clarke, is one of a host of new faces drafted in to give the new Crossroads, which will boast its own gym and swimming pool, a facelift. He will be joined by former Price is Right hostess Cindy Marshall-Day who will play beauty salon manager Tracey Booth. While the bulk of the new Crossroads cast will be made up of fresh faces, three of those featured in the original series, which clocked up 4,510 episodes before its demise, will revive their roles. Jane Rossington, who spoke the first ever line in the soap on November 2, 1964, will return as glamorous, many-times-married Jill Chance. She will be re-joined by Tony Adams as her on-off screen partner Adam Chance, and Kathy Staff, best known as Nora Batty in Last of the Summer Wine, as chef Doris Luke. A spokesman for Carlton Productions, whose £10 million series will be the centrepiece of ITV's daytime schedule next spring, said viewers would no longer have to make do with the wobbly sets of old. He added: 'The cast is intentionally a mixture of old Crossroads favourites who are coming back, people who are already household names or familiar faces from elsewhere, and fresh young actors,' he said. 'There are lots of young and talented actors, and they just so happen to be good-looking too.' Among the others joining the motel are former Hollyoaks stars James McKenzie Robinson and Toby Sawyer, who have been cast as waiters, and Liverpool One actress Rebecca Hazlewood as streetwise waitress Beana Vaz. The new motel owners Kate and Patrick Russell will be played by Jane Gurnett - nurse Rachel Long-worth in Casualty - and Neil McCaul, whose recent credits include East-Enders and Hearts and Bones. |
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Filming Starts for New Crossroads
Filming has started on a new version of Crossroads. A number of actors from the original soap have been signed up for the revived show. It is being filmed at Carlton's studios in Nottingham and on location in the surrounding area. Jane Rossington returns as Jill Harvey. She spoke the first line in the very first episode in 1964. The original series ran for 24 years. Former Coronation Street actress Sherrie Hewson will play receptionist Virginia Raven in the Crossroads motel. Other confirmed members of the cast include Kathy Staff who played Nora Batty in Last of the Summer Wine. She returns as Doris Luke. Tony Adams appears as Adam Chance. Jane Gurnett will play the owner of the motel, Kate Russell. Former Hollyoaks stars James McKenzie Robinson and Toby Sawyer have also been signed up. One omission from the original line-up will be handyman Benny who was played by Paul Henry. Benny's character will be replaced by Bradley Clarke, to be played by Luke Walker. Miss Rossington said: "To have been apart of a programme which made television history was wonderful. And to be back at Crossroads as the series is reborn is really exciting". Series executive producer Sharon Bloom promised the new show will be well worth watching. It will be screened on ITV five nights a week from next spring. "We'll be introducing some powerful new characters and storylines while retaining many of the aspects that made Crossroads such a well-loved programme for so many years," she said. |
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December 10th 2000 Sunday Mirror 11,000-MILE TRIP TO STAR IN CROSSROADS
A STAR of the revived TV soap Crossroads will be commuting every week to appear in it...11,000 miles across the Atlantic. Former Price Is Right hostess Cindy Marshall-Day will make the round trip from her home in California to star in the Midlands-based series. Cindy, 33, who plays beauty salon manager Tracey Booth, said: "Lots of people commute across the Atlantic these days - I don't think it's a big deal. "I really wanted the part and to be at the start of something new." She will appear in episodes from Monday to Friday before flying home each weekend. A Crossroads insider said: "Nobody could believe it when Cindy said she was going to fly in every week from the US. "We thought she would have to drop out, but she convinced the producers that she could fill the role while living in the US. "The motel has never had a guest from California - but now we have a staff member from there!" Cindy, who became a hostess in the hit quiz show The Price Is Right when she was 18, moved to America two years ago. She met her future husband, marketing millionaire Tony Lane Roberts at a showbusiness party in Los Angeles and they married in Las Vegas only a few weeks later. A spokesman for the show's producer's Carlton TV said: "We are quite happy for Cindy to commute. Where she lives is entirely up to her. "There are some great storylines in the script for her which will make the long journey worthwhile." Crossroads, which was axed by TV chiefs in 1988 after more than 4,500 episodes, will return as a daytime ITV show next spring. Only three members of the original cast are making a comeback in the new series. They are Jane Rossington (who played Jill Chance), Tony Adams (Adam Chance) and Kathy Staff (chef Doris Luke, but best known as Nora Batty in BBC comedy Last of the Summer Wine). There will be no return for the much-loved handyman Benny, played by Paul Henry. The new series will be shot at Carlton's studios in Nottingham and on location in the nearby village of Redmile in the picturesque Vale of Belvoir. The refurbished motel makes its first appearance in the 21st century complete with a new gym and swimming pool. Crossroads first appeared on November 2, 1964. It was originally scheduled to run for 30 episodes over six weeks. During its heyday in the '70s the show attracted more than 16 million viewers, rivalling Coronation Street for the title of most popular soap. However, critics attacked the series for its wobbling sets and wooden acting. Carlton is spending pounds 10 million on the new series. Among the show's fans is Tony Blair. He is said to be "delighted" that the programme is making a long- awaited comeback. |
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Wednesday, December 13, 2000 Daily Express Julia gives up Oxbridge to star in Crossroads
School girl Julia Burchell has turned her back on a glittering academic career and a possible place at Oxbridge to join the new production of TV soap Crossroads. She has been cast in one of the major roles as Nicola Russell, daughter of Motel owner Kate Russell, months after passing 10 A-star passes at GCSE. Julia, 17, has already started filming at Carlton's Nottingham studio with the blessing of her school, St. Martin's in Solihull, West Midlands. Her father Alan, 51, said yesterday that Julia had been scheduled to sit four A-levels and her teachers predicted that she would win a place at Oxford or Cambridge. But Mr. Burchell, from Tamworth in Arden, Warwickshire, who runs an engineering company, said yesterday: "We are very proud of her. "She was born a very, very clever girl. It was forecast by her school that she would be very successful at Cambridge or Oxford. She was going to do four A-levels in English Literature, French, Biology and History. We have all agonised over her decision. "But I think she has a very good career in front of her. We have collectively worked out the pluses and minuses. It will be great to see her on television, one can't deny that. "But the important thing is that she continues to keep her feet on the ground. She always has in the past." Mr. Buchell said he and his wife Anne, 50, knew their daughter was destined for stardom when she sang Crazy for You at a karaoke night in Tenerife when she was eight. "She was superb, she brought the house down," he said. Julia, who was four when the original Crossroads was axed in 1988 after 24 years, said: "It was a very difficult decision because I worked so hard for my GCSEs. I didn't sleep for two weeks but I couldn't let the opportunity pass. I did my first filming on November 22. It was really strange but very exciting." Julia, who is continuing her A-levels studies in French and English on a part-time basis with the help of her school, landed the part after attending Carlton's Junior Television Workshop. Mrs. Sheila Williams, headmistress of St. Martin's, said: "Julia is very intelligent and academically able as well as a very talented actor. "Whatever she chooses to do she will do it successfully. Julia is maintaining her commitment to academic studies, albeit on a part-time basis. The School is doing everything it can to support her." |
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8th January 2001 Daily Mail Cast check in for Crossroads
The cast of hotel soap Crossroads has checked in for filming - 12 years after the series was last aired on TV. Actors for the show posed in the new hotel built to replace the old motel set, famed for its shaky scenery and creaking sets. This time round, the soap has been injected with a touch of high-octane sex appeal. Although old favourites such as Jane Rossington, who plays Jill Chance, will appear in the series, slow-witted Benny will be replaced by hunky handyman Bradley Clarke. He will be joined by former Price Is Right hostess Cindy Marshall-Day, who will play beauty salon manager Tracey Booth. The £10million remake is being filmed in Redmile, Leicester. It will form the centrepiece of ITV?s daytime schedule next spring. Among others joining the motel are former Hollyoaks stars James McKenzie Robinson and Toby Sawyer, who have been cast as waiters, and Liverpool One actress Rebecca Hazlewood who plays streetwise waitress Beana Vaz. The new motel owners Kate and Patrick Russell will be played by Jane Gurnett - nurse Rachel Longworth in Casualty - and Neil McCaul, whose recent credits include Eastenders and Hearts and Bones. |
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Sunday, January 14, 2001 Yahoo Irish News RTE to screen Crossroads as soap battle goes on
RTE looks set to start screening the updated version of Crossroads in an effort to win back audiences in the "soap battle" with TV3 and UTV. The state broadcaster suffered a major blow with the loss of Coronation Street and Emmerdale. However RTE hopes the Crossroads remake, which is promising a "young, good-looking cast", will be a hit with Irish viewers. The new Crossroads is being shot at present and promises to be a world away from its predecessor which became famous for its wobbly sets and phones that rang after they were picked up. Carlton Television is spending some 10 million pounds on the remake. RTE plans to show the soap at lunchtime with a possible repeat at teatime, it will fill the gap caused by the move of Emmerdale to TV3. |
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THE PRESS LAUNCH: VALENTINE’S DAY |
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Wednesday, 14 February, 2001, BBC News Online Nora Batty to join Crossroads
Actress Kathy Staff has quit the long-running BBC comedy Last of the Summer Wine to rejoin Crossroads, scrapped in 1988 but re-launching on ITV in March. Staff, who has played the role of Nora Batty for 28 years, said her decision was triggered by the death of fellow Summer Wine star Bill Owen in 1999. The actress said her final series last year had not been the same without Owen, who played Compo. "As far as I was concerned it didn't work so I decided not to do any more," she commented. She will reprise her old role as Doris Luke when Crossroads returns. Staff is one of just three original cast members asked to rejoin the soap, along with Jane Rossington as Jill Harvey, and Tony Adams, who will play Adam Chance. Speaking at the Crossroads re-launch in London, Staff said the new version of the soap was more polished and fast-moving than the old series, which ran from 1964 to 1988. She joked that the sets - once renowned for wobbling during filming - were now more solid, adding: "There's so much going on, I think it will be a great success." Rossington, meanwhile, blamed the decision to axe the old series on bad feeling from television executives. "A lot of people in the industry didn't like the show," she said. "They couldn't understand why the public did and because of that there was a lot of antipathy." Tony Adams echoed her views. "I just think it would be lovely if the show - having deservedly now got the recognition that it's got - is left alone to be a success for everybody," said Adams. Crossroads, he said, was the "mother of the soaps". Viewers' favourite Benny, played by Paul Henry in the original series, will not feature in the new show. Staff said: "Benny was a lovely character, a lovely actor. I don't know that there could be a place for him, that's up to people to decide. It would be lovely to have him back." Jane Gurnett, meanwhile, will play the hotel boss, with Sherrie Hewson as receptionist. Crossroads will screen twice a day at lunch times and at 1705 in the old Home and Away slots, from 5 March. |
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Thursday February 15, 2001 Media Guardian Soap's melody lingers but sets won't wobble
Carlton TV has enlisted Rod Stratfold, art director of Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, to ensure that the new reception does not wobble and the bedrooms don't sway. But the programme-makers have stopped short of abandoning the music that introduced Crossroads for 23 years until it was axed in 1988. |
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February 15th 2001 The Huddersfield Daily Examiner Kathy’s Crossroads LAST Of The Summer Wine star Kathy Staff has told of her heartache at leaving the UK's longest-running TV comedy programme. Kathy, who is rejoining the cast of ITV's Crossroads, said it had been "a wrench" to leave the BBC1 series filmed in Holmfirth, but her decision was triggered by the death of her co-star Bill Owen, who played Compo. The actress, who played Nora Batty for 28 years, said her final series last year had not been the same without Owen, who died in July, 1999. Speaking at the Crossroads relaunch in London, she said: "As far as I was concerned, it didn't work last year, so I decided not to do any more." |
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Thursday February 22, 2001 The Guardian Crossroads reopens on March 5
ITV has announced the once-reviled soap is to return twice a day from March 5, with a special peaktime airing on March 6 to relaunch the series. The show will go head to head with BBC1's Neighbours at 1.30pm, with a second helping at 5.05pm. And the network is pulling out all the stops to ensure the show is a hit. The first two episodes will be rolled together for an hour-long special at 9pm on March 6. The soap will open with ex-owner-turned-alcoholic Jill Chance returning to claim her share in the revamped four-star hotel. "We wanted to give as many people as possible a taste of what Crossroads is all about," said ITV director of programmes David Liddiment. An aggressive marketing campaign is already under way. The show is being heavily trailed to peaktime viewers as well as to the core daytime audience. Carlton, which is making the programme, hopes to attract a wide range of viewers to the show. "There is something for everyone," claimed series producer Kay Patrick. |
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March 3rd 2001 The Independent Soaps at the crossroads
The scene: a conference suite at the Great Eastern Hotel on London's Liverpool Street. At least 200 journalists are seated in front of a scattering of television monitors for the launch of the new Crossroads. At the sound of the first notes of Tony Hatch's retained, if rearranged, theme tune, the room erupts in cheers, laughter and applause. A new soap couldn't hope for a better footing - a mix of nostalgic goodwill and brand recognition - nicely primed for some 21st-century gloss and know-how. The original Crossroads vanished from our screens in April 1988 after 4,510 episodes, with Meg Richardson living in America, the 20- chalet-motel renamed Kings Oak Country Hotel, and the bobble-hatted idiot Benny ("Yes, Miss Diane") a fading memory. At its late-1970s zenith, more than 17 million viewers regularly tuned in for their thrice-weekly dose of wobbly scenery and even shakier acting. Some even saw it as a work of camp genius. The new Crossroads has been upgraded from a no-star motel to a four-star hotel; it has a cast of 26, compared to the original cast of eight; and more than half the actors are in their twenties, if not younger. This reflects the soap's likely demographic, which, crudely speaking, is going to be housewives and schoolchildren. Showing five days a week, it is screening twice a day, at 1.30pm and 5.05pm. In other words, it's the new Home and Away, the Australian daytime soap that ITV lost to Channel 5. Channel 5's purchase of Home and Away was interesting in itself as, unlike sporting events, it was the first time a soap had switched TV stations in this country; it was also a reflection of how much simpler it is to take a pre-existing soap than to start one from scratch. Channel 5's Family Affairs (for me, the real Crossroads de nos jours) has had a hell of a time building up its fan base. Meanwhile, ITV is casting yet another soap, the youthful Trafalgar Road ("more Dawson's Creek than Crossroads"), while Greg Dyke has overridden John Birt's blanket refusal to back a fourth EastEnders episode per week. The question arises: how much more can we take? The truth is that "we" are not really part of the equation. As an industry, television is far more ruthless today than it was in 1988. As the British TV schedules become more and more like their American counterparts - that is to say, increasingly identical, with stripped scheduling throwing like against like - each channel is going to feel it needs at least two soaps, while existing dramas (The Bill is a prime example) become more and more soap-like. The losers, of course, will be the makers and consumers of original and inventive drama. Welcome back, Crossroads? I don't think so. `Crossroads' starts on Monday at 1.30pm and 5.30pm on ITV. (Gerard Gilbert) |
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March 4th 2001 The Sunday Herald Soap on the ropes
ITV, Monday-Friday, 1.30pm, repeated 5.05pm The resurrected Crossroads is directionless and dead in the water. Our critic has a few reservations TELEVISION executives abhor a vacuum. That's the only reason I can think of for the revival of Crossroads, a show no right-thinking people liked in the first place and which has since been rendered obsolete by the spot-on parody of Victoria Wood's Acorn Antiques and the real-life banality of the docu-soap Hotel. I suppose it was either bring back Crossroads or fill that dead air with yet another resprayed Ross Kemp vehicle. To be honest, I didn't really watch Crossroads during its Seventies heyday, although I do remember getting rather hot under the collar when a post-Gregory's Girl Dee Hepburn joined the cast in 1987. So for those of you, like me, who can't get all nostalgic at the thought of wobbly sets and wobblier acting, a brief history lesson. Crossroads began life in 1964 as ATV's response to the success of Coronation Street. It was Britain's first daily soap opera but, by the time it was networked in 1972, had been reduced to four days a week. Rather optimistically, the new Crossroads has been bumped back up to five days. Set in the Midlands town of King's Oak, Crossroads centred on the eponymous motel which was ruled by Meg Richardson (Noele Gordon), an unfeasibly unlucky woman who, in her 17-year tenure, was variously blown up, locked up, cuckolded and poisoned. But, like some service industry Rasputin, Meg never pegged it. She eventually sailed out of the series on the QE2 in 1981. Meg's daughter Jill (Jane Rossington) inherited her mother's Jonah gene. She was married three times (once to a bigamist), had a baby by her stepbrother, suffered two miscarriages, became a junkie, traded that in for alcoholism and had a nervous breakdown. A glutton for punishment, she returns to the new series of Crossroads, drink problem intact. For Jill, those walls are still a-wobbling. While Crossroads was originally a motel, the new setting is a four- star hotel, albeit one which only has cable in the executive suite. It's run by Kate Russell and her son Jake, a handsome cad given to cheating on his wife with the more attractive female guests. He's the Grant Mitchell, the Terry Duckworth, the Marcus Tandy of this tawdry affair. More hilariously, there's a Scottish chef called Billy. Crossroads used to have a Scottish chef - the gloriously named Shughie McFee - but this one is clearly jelly-moulded after Gordon Ramsay, although it's doubtful that Ramsay would be seen dead in the multi-coloured fez sported by Crossroads kitchen staff . All long locks and short temper, Billy's given to abandoning his post at the carvery if asked to slice beef too thick. It can surely only be a matter of time before he takes a steak knife to Jake, prompting the question, who filleted JR? On the evidence of the first programme, it's doubtful that Crossroads can hope to compete with EastEnders or Corrie. The acting, unlike the cheese it so resembles, has not improved with age - it's still as stilted as a stilton on stilts. The plotlines, meanwhile, as a bland as a stale cracker. The high point of episode one comes when a mysterious young biker is wrestled to the ground by a Brummie called Bradley. It's hardly The Sopranos. Mind you, all soap operas are terrible when they start and remain pretty bad throughout their lifetime. The trick is just to never take it off television and, eventually, the structural cracks get hidden as the show becomes so much wallpaper. Crossroads will survive this pasting. (Peter Ross) |
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March 4th 2001 Daily Mail New Faces Check in to the Crossroads Motel
The original series had eight main regular cast members, the new series has 28. New cast: KATE RUSSELL - Casualty star Jane Gurnett - General Manager, became a single mother to Jake aged 15, she is now married to Patrick, which whom she has two children, Nicola and Mark. Although she is strong and capable, she has a blind spot where Jake is concerned. PATRICK RUSSELL - Neil McCaul, who had just finished a theatre role as Jane Gurnett's husband when he got the part in Crossroads - Catering Manager, Genial and charming, he has been married to Kate for 22 years and is devoted to his children, particularly Nicola. JAKE BOOTH - Colin Wells, starred in the remake of The Professionals - Smarmy Jake is a womaniser who has become bored with his marriage to the attractive Tracey, who he was forced to marry when she became pregnant with their son, Scott. MARK RUSSELL - Grange Hill actor Max Brown - Part-time waiter Mark is 22 and a bit of a slacker who feels he is in the shadow of his charismatic half-brother Jake. NICOLA RUSSELL - clever Julia Burchill who has put her 4 'A' Levels on hold - 15 year old Nicola is a spoilt princess and a Billie Piper lookalike, but has a strong character behind the bratty facade. Her best friend and partner-in-crime is the flirtatious Chloe. TRACEY BOOTH - former Price is Right gameshow hostess Cindy Marshall Day, who is commuting weekly from California to act in Crossroads - Beauty Salon Manager, who adores her husband Jake but has been repeatedly hurt by his infidelity. SCOTT BOOTH - young actor Keiran Hardcastle - 11 year old Scott feels hurt by his parents squabbling and the fact that his father rarely has time for him due to his burning ambition to own Crossroads. JILL HARVEY - Jane Rossington was in the original series for the full 24 years - Jill is the daughter of Meg Richardson, the original owner of Crossroads, and Jill still owns 30%. She is broken-hearted about the recent death of her husband and her estrangement from daughter Sarah-Jane. She is down on her luck financially and has turned to drink. SARAH-JANE HARVEY - musical star Joanne Farrell - manipulative and sexy Sarah-Jane is a Meg Richardson in the making, who sees the hotel as her birth-right. ADAM CHANCE - Tony Adams, who played the same character in the original series - Jill's ex-husband is still resentful after she walked out on their marriage, destroying his chances of becoming the owner of Crossroads. He is now a seemingly flash wine-merchant. VIRGINIA RAVEN - 'Coronation Street' and 'Barbara' actress Sherrie Hewson - Snobby senior receptionist, Virginia is gossipy and obsessive about protocol. She worships Jake. ROCKY WESSON - Roger Sloman who has had many TV roles in programmes such as The Vicar of Dibley and The Young Ones - lonely Head porter Rocky has been at Crossroads for years and has a long-held crush on Virginia. | |
