Coronation Street

Coronation Street 1960

5.30

The residents of Coronation Street are ordinary, working-class people, and the show follows them through regular social and family interactions at home, in the workplace, and in their local pub, the Rovers Return Inn. Britain's longest-running soap.

1960

Emmerdale

Emmerdale 1972

4.10

The lives of several families in the Yorkshire Dales revolve around a farm and the nearby village. With murders, affairs, lies, deceit, laughter and tears, it's all there in the village.

1972

Vera

Vera 2011

7.40

A sharp detective with a messy life, DCI Vera Stanhope patrols her “patch” of northeast England, pursuing the truth in cases of murder, kidnapping, and blackmail. Vera is obsessive about her work and faces the world with caustic wit, guile and courage.

2011

A Touch of Frost

A Touch of Frost 1992

7.50

Jack Frost is a gritty, dogged and unconventional detective with sympathy for the underdog and an instinct for moral justice who attracts trouble like a magnet. Despite some animosity with his superintendent, Norman “Horn-rimmed Harry” Mullett, Frost and his ever-changing roster of assistants manage to solve cases via his clever mind, good heart, and cool touch.

1992

Waterloo Road

Waterloo Road 2006

7.20

Waterloo Road is a UK television drama series the first broadcast was in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 9 March 2006. Originally set in a troubled comprehensive school in Rochdale, England, the location of the show was moved to the former Greenock Academy in Greenock, Scotland in 2012. The series focuses on the lives of the school's teachers and students, and confronts social issues such as extramarital affairs, abortion, divorce, child abuse, and suicide. Waterloo Road is produced by Shed Productions, the company responsible for Bad Girls and Footballers' Wives.

2006

Ideal

Ideal 2005

8.10

Sitcom about a small-time dope dealer and his strange collection of acquaintances.

2005

Last of the Summer Wine

Last of the Summer Wine 1973

7.10

Unencumbered by wives, jobs or any other responsibilities, three senior citizens who've never really grown up explore their world in the Yorkshire Dales. They spend their days speculating about their fellow townsfolk and thinking up adventures not usually favored by the elderly. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse in 1973. The show ran for 295 episodes until 2010. It is the longest running comedy Britain has produced and the longest running sitcom in the world.

1973

Shameless

Shameless 2004

7.60

The story of a young group of siblings pretty much abandoned by their parents, surviving by their wits - and humor - on a rough Manchester council estate. Whilst they won't admit it, they need help and find it in Steve, a young middle class lad who falls for Fiona, the oldest sibling, and increasingly finds himself drawn to this unconventional and unique family. Anarchic family life seen through the eyes of an exceptionally bright fifteen year old, who struggles to come of age in the context of his belligerent father, closeted brother, psychotic sister and internet porn star neighbors.

2004

Heartbeat

Heartbeat 1992

7.00

Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.

1992

Trollied

Trollied 2011

6.20

Set in Valco, a fictional budget supermarket in the north west of England, Trollied finds the funny in one of our most familiar surroundings and focuses on the types of characters we all recognise: bored checkout staff, ineffectual managers and a range of customers, from the irate to the downright bizarre.

2011

Rising Damp

Rising Damp 1974

7.40

Set in a seedy bedsit, the cowardly landlord Rigsby has his conceits debunked by his long suffering tenants.

1974

Watching

Watching 1987

7.80

A British television sitcom set on Merseyside that revolves around the relationship between Malcolm, a polite and friendly but dull man from middle-class Meols, and Brenda, a sharp-tongued, rough-around-the-edges working-class girl from Liverpool. Instead of the typical 'will they, won't they get together?', after getting together in the first episode, the show is more 'will they, won't they break up?' Watching refers to both the acerbic people watching that Brenda does and the bird watching that Malcolm enjoys, much to the disappointment of Brenda.

1987

Dalziel & Pascoe

Dalziel & Pascoe 1996

6.35

British crime drama based on the "Dalziel and Pascoe" series of books by Reginald Hill, set in the fictional Yorkshire town of Wetherton. The unlikely duo of politically incorrect elephant-in-a-china-shop-copper Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel (pronounced Dee-ell) and his more sensitive and university educated sidekick Detective Sargent, later Detective Inspector, Peter Pascoe is always on hand to solve the classic murder mystery, while maintaining a down to earth wit and humour.

1996

Spender

Spender 1991

7.00

Jimmy Nail plays tough cop Spender, forced to return to his native Newcastle after a failed undercover operation in London. He uses tough and unconventional methods to tackle the criminal underworld, but he must also deal with the friends, enemies and family he left behind, and never expected to return to. Sammy Johnson played Spender's sidekick Stick, while Denise Welch played Spender's wife.

1991

The Grimleys

The Grimleys 1999

7.80

The Grimleys is a nostalgic comedy-drama television series set on a council estate in Dudley, West Midlands, England in the mid-1970s. It was first broadcast by Granada TV for ITV in 1999, following a pilot in 1997, and concluded in 2001 after three series. The show was written by Jed Mercurio, who had trained as a doctor and whose first series, Cardiac Arrest - written under the pseudonym 'John MacUre' - had attracted critical plaudits for its dark portrayal of life in a disintegrating British National Health Service. The filming of the school took place in Salford, Buile Hill High, Hope High and Pendleton College, although the filming of the characters' homes actually took place some 80 miles away in the Dudley area itself; around Parkes Hall Road on the Dudley-Sedgley border.

1999

Wire in the Blood

Wire in the Blood 2002

7.77

Clinical psychologist Dr Tony Hill's uncanny ability to see into the minds of murderers means he finds it difficult to distance himself from disturbing cases.

2002

Cracker

Cracker 1993

6.51

The wise-cracking Fitz is a brilliant but flawed criminal psychologist with a remarkable insight into the criminal mind.

1993

Hetty Wainthropp Investigates

Hetty Wainthropp Investigates 1996

7.20

Instead of spending her golden years lying down, the indomitable Hetty Wainthropp found her calling late in life. Combining common sense, her husband, and her pocketbook, this senior sleuth takes on all the cases the police deem too minor.

1996

Bread

Bread 1986

7.10

Bread is a British television sitcom, written by Carla Lane, produced by the BBC and screened on BBC1 from 1 May 1986 to 3 November 1991. The series focused on the devoutly-Catholic and extended Boswell family of Liverpool, in the district of Dingle, led by its matriarch Nellie through a number of ups and downs as they tried to make their way through life in Thatcher's Britain with no visible means of support. The street shown at the start of each programme is Elswick Street. A family called Boswell had also featured in Lane's earlier sitcom The Liver Birds and Lane admitted in interviews that the two families were probably related. Nellie's feckless and estranged husband, Freddie, left her for another woman known as 'Lilo Lill'. Her children Joey, Jack, Adrian, Aveline and Billy continued to live in the family home in Kelsall Street and contributed money to the central family fund, largely through benefit fraud and the sale of stolen goods.

1986