Television – Actress in 1997". British Academy of Film and Television Arts . Retrieved 2 September 2013. Following the success of Our Friends in the North, Flannery proposed a "kind of prequel" to the serial under the title of Our Friends in the South. [64] This would have told the story of the Jarrow March. [65] Although the BBC initially took up the project, it did not progress to script stage and was eventually abandoned. [64] [65]

Our Friends in the North DVD review | Cine Outsider Our Friends in the North DVD review | Cine Outsider

The stage version of Our Friends in the North was seen by BBC television drama producer Michael Wearing in Newcastle in 1982, and he was immediately keen on producing a television adaptation. [16] At that time, Wearing was based at the BBC English Regions Drama Department at BBC Pebble Mill in Birmingham, which had a specific remit for making "regional drama". [17] Wearing initially approached Flannery to adapt his play into a four-part television serial for BBC2, with each episode being 50 minutes long and the Rhodesian strand dropped for practical reasons. [18] [19] A change of executives meant that the project was not produced, although Wearing persisted in trying to get it commissioned. Flannery extended the serial to six episodes, [18] one for each United Kingdom general election from 1964 to 1979. [20] However, by this point in the mid-1980s, Michael Grade was Director of Programmes for BBC Television, and he had no interest in the project. [21] a b c d Raphael, Amy (18 September 2010). "Our Friends in the North made a star of Daniel Craig but almost wasn't made". The Guardian . Retrieved 1 September 2013. a b Pattinson, Charles (2002). Retrospective: An Interview with the Creators of the Series (DVD). BMG. BMG DVD 74321. The show’s creator, Peter Flannery, once described Our Friends in the North as “a very, very posh soap opera”. While the comparison holds up – there are plenty of affairs, violence and disbelief-pushing narrative coincidences to be found here – its beauty lies in its ability to elevate the mundane. This is, after all, a series about relatively normal people being flung about by the cultural and social upheavals of normal life. However, the point of view rarely dips below epic.

a b "Classic comedy drama voted TV's greatest". The Daily Telegraph. 27 August 2003 . Retrieved 2 September 2003.

Our Friends in the North - Complete Series - 3-DVD Box Set Our Friends in the North - Complete Series - 3-DVD Box Set

Flannery, Peter (2002). Retrospective: An Interview with the Creators of the Series (DVD). BMG. BMG DVD 74321. Our Friends in the North has been invoked on several occasions as a comparison when similar drama programmes have been screened on British television. The year following Our Friends in the North 's broadcast, Tony Marchant's drama serial Holding On was promoted by the BBC as being an " Our Friends in the South," after Marchant made the comparison when discussing it with executives. [73] The 2001 BBC Two drama serial In a Land of Plenty was previewed by The Observer newspaper as being "the most ambitious television drama since Our Friends in the North." [74] The writer Paula Milne drew inspiration from Our Friends in the North for her own White Heat (2012); she felt that Our Friends in the North had been too centred on white, male, heterosexual characters and she deliberately wanted to counter that focus. [75] The original stage version of Our Friends in the North was revived in Newcastle by Northern Stage in 2007, with 14 cast members playing 40 characters. [76] [77] In August 2016, Flannery was interviewed for an event, part of the Whitley Bay Film Festival, that celebrated the 20th anniversary of the series being broadcast. [78] Radio [ edit ] In the United States, Our Friends in the North was awarded a Certificate of Merit in the Television Drama Miniseries category at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1997. [5] Our Friends in the North was broadcast in nine episodes on BBC2 at 9pm on Monday nights, from 15 January to 11 March 1996. [49] The episode lengths varied, with 1966 being the shortest at 63 minutes, 48 seconds and 1987 the longest at 74 minutes, 40 seconds. [33] The total running time of the serial is 623 minutes. [50] Television – Dennis Potter Award in 1997". British Academy of Film and Television Arts . Retrieved 2 September 2013.a b c d e Eccleston, Christopher (2002). Interview with Christopher Eccleston (DVD). BMG. BMG DVD 74321.