Following the announcement that '90s TV favourite Byker Grove is to be rebooted for the 21st century, we spoke to some of the stars of its original run.
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00:00 Oh my god, I can't believe I'm still getting recognised for Biker Grove 20 odd years later.
00:04 It's quite mad really.
00:06 The 1990s, longer ago than some of us like to think they were.
00:11 BBC children's drama Biker Grove ran through that decade.
00:15 We're still linked to the show by the presence on TV of its most famous alumni, Anton Deck.
00:20 Okay.
00:22 So I'm going for chips then.
00:23 If you like.
00:24 Having a pie.
00:26 If you like.
00:29 I might have a tarantula in butter.
00:31 What do you think?
00:31 Been like this all day.
00:36 What's the matter?
00:36 And it's through Anton Deck that a version of it is set to return.
00:40 We've teamed up with the clever telly people at Bulwell 73 to work on a reboot.
00:45 We've chatted to a couple of the leads from the original show about their experiences.
00:49 So I played Claire, I think it was, was it Claire Rivers?
00:52 My god, that's so bad that I still can't.
00:54 Sure it was Claire Rivers and she was an up and coming DJ, a bit like myself.
01:01 And she looked after her dad who had multiple sclerosis.
01:06 That was her main storyline throughout the four or five years I was there.
01:09 I knew a little bit about multiple sclerosis because my grandma has it.
01:13 So I didn't have to do too much research into that.
01:16 But I did meet a group of young carers off the back of doing that part.
01:21 I had to do like a meet and greet at a museum.
01:24 I think it was at the Hancock Museum or the Discovery Museum in Newcastle.
01:27 And it was quite an eye opener to what it was really like for some of these kids and
01:30 what they were doing.
01:31 And I think Bite of Grove portrayed that really, really quite well.
01:33 Put it across into the role I was doing, definitely.
01:37 Well, my kids have watched Bite of Grove on YouTube and are completely like,
01:42 what are you doing?
01:43 Why did you do that?
01:44 Did you have no phones?
01:45 Did you have no tablets?
01:46 What's the internet not about?
01:48 Why did you go to this place?
01:49 So Bite of Grove was basically a youth club.
01:51 That's so kids from all walks of life experience different things that kids and
01:58 teenagers go through on a daily basis.
02:01 I think Bite of Grove took quite a lot of risks with regards to the storylines
02:06 that they used to put out there.
02:07 For people that were watching it, at the time, it was so groundbreaking in the storylines.
02:14 You know, we had the first gay kiss on kids TV.
02:17 And it might have been as tame as anything.
02:18 And my kids would be like, is that anything?
02:21 Like, they'd be laughing about that now.
02:22 It's nothing.
02:23 It was a kiss on the cheek.
02:24 Now it would be water off a duck's back.
02:26 Everyone's a lot more accepting.
02:28 We live in a much more diverse, multicultural society, which is great.
02:32 And that's how things should be.
02:33 And Bite of Grove tried to push that out there as to this is how people live.
02:38 And this is what people want to be.
02:39 And it was kind of frowned upon a little bit.
02:43 We're talking about what was the '90s when I was in it.
02:45 Things weren't as open as what they were.
02:47 Whereas now, people would just be like, that's fine.
02:50 They're gay.
02:51 Yeah, great.
02:52 You know, and that's really good.
02:54 But Bite of Grove, I think, kind of led the way a little bit to things like that being
02:58 a bit more accepting in children's television.
03:00 You know, teen pregnancy, it covered really big topics in a time where people didn't have
03:07 access to that.
03:07 It was talking about things that people didn't-- we didn't have social media.
03:11 So when people watched-- when young kids watched Bite of Grove, and maybe they saw themselves
03:15 in the character and the character's struggles or difficulties, it felt-- it felt like-- it
03:20 felt familiar.
03:22 So my memory of how I first got into Bite of Grove was a friend of mine had been an
03:27 extra in Bite of Grove, a lad I went to school with.
03:29 I wanted to get a paper round.
03:33 My dad wouldn't let me get a paper round.
03:37 So I thought, oh, Johnny made a bit of cash on that Bite of Grove.
03:40 I'm going to write in.
03:41 And in my letter, I put a photograph of myself and just said, if you've got any auditions
03:46 or any extra parts, could I be considered?
03:49 And that was literally how everything started for me.
03:52 Well, I was around-- I must have been 10 or 11.
03:56 And I wanted to be an actor.
03:58 I had decided-- I mean, my dad was a welder.
04:01 My mum worked in a bank.
04:02 I don't know where it came from.
04:03 I did not come from some starry stage screen family or anything like that.
04:08 I was like, I'm going to be an-- I am an actor, is what I would say.
04:11 And I wrote a letter to the casting department of Bite of Grove.
04:15 And then on my 30th birthday, I was actually given this letter on a canvas.
04:18 And it's just the cutest and most hilarious thing.
04:21 And I wrote this letter.
04:22 I said, dear casting department-- it was Lady Cawdee-- dear Dee, I would like to have a
04:28 part in Bite of Grove.
04:29 And I have-- I put on it, I am not shy one bit.
04:33 And they did actually get in touch with me because Bite of Grove was always about normal
04:40 kids from normal schools that didn't necessarily have that stage and screen background.
04:46 And they got me in for auditions.
04:47 And I auditioned, I think, about five times, five or six times for a different part.
04:53 It was-- I can't remember, actually, what the part was.
04:56 But I didn't get it.
04:57 And about six months later, they wrote a part in for me.
05:01 And I came in as Emma Miller.
05:03 And I was in it for seven years.
05:05 So that letter, it was the start of it all.
05:08 I think I was four or five years.
05:10 I can't remember if I was 19 or 20-ish the last episode I did.
05:15 And that had been a cameo where I went back for one episode of a character who'd been
05:18 killed off, as they do.
05:20 So yeah, about four or five years I was on the show.
05:23 The cast and crew at Biocar were-- it sounds horribly cliched, but we really were a big
05:29 family.
05:30 We were-- we spent more time there than we often did at school or with our families sometimes.
05:35 And so we became very close very quickly.
05:39 Bite of Grove was a huge thing for me.
05:41 It completely changed the course of my whole life.
05:44 All I wanted to do was be a PE teacher.
05:47 I love sport.
05:48 I love fitness.
05:48 And that's kind of the path I always wanted to go down.
05:52 And not that I'm saying that's a bad career.
05:54 Of course it isn't.
05:55 Probably be a lot more stable in the acting industry to do that.
05:58 But it led me onto some amazing things, some amazing opportunities.
06:05 Obviously, I've met some really good friends off it.
06:08 I've traveled the world because of it.
06:09 I was fortunate enough to still work.
06:12 You know, not everybody gets to go out and work after Bite of Grove.
06:15 Not everybody wants to, mind.
06:16 Some people loved it, but that wasn't for me.
06:18 So I kind of carried on filming different programs and did theater tours.
06:24 And yeah, so for me, it was a massive stepping stone.
06:27 And of course, we'll have that on deck.
06:28 I mean, how lucky are we?
06:30 [LAUGHS]
06:31 We talked about it in the cast.
06:33 We would always say, I wonder if they'll bring it back.
06:36 And I'm really excited.
06:38 I mean, I think it's in good hands.
06:40 Ant and Dec are decent lads, nice lads.
06:44 And they get it.
06:44 And they've always maintained a kind of--
06:48 they've always known about-- they've never forgot their roots.
06:53 And they've always maintained a relationship with Bite of Grove people,
06:56 people from their generation, cast, crew, and things like that.
06:59 And I think that makes me feel like it's in safe hands.
07:02 They get what that was about.
07:04 That show was about those normal kids.
07:06 It was about giving young kids from the Northeast a chance to shine.
07:10 I'm excited that the Northeast is going to get that.
07:13 It's great to see that.
07:15 And I hope that there'll be this whole new generation of young people
07:19 that are excited about what is going to happen next with it.
07:23 And I'm excited to see what they do with it.
07:25 I think the revival of Bite of Grove is a really positive thing for Tiny and Weir,
07:31 for both in front and behind the camera.
07:33 Remember, everybody who works in television
07:35 doesn't necessarily want to be in front of the camera.
07:38 So for people who want to get into production, design, costume design, makeup,
07:42 it's going to create quite a lot of local jobs in TV
07:45 instead of a lot of people have to go to Manchester or London.
07:48 For me, the revival, I think it'll be a lot more diverse than it was when I was in it.
07:54 It'll be a lot more open to things that we spoke about earlier.
07:57 Times have changed.
07:58 People are a lot more accepting of differences, if you like, and diversity.
08:03 And I really hope that it is authentic.
08:08 I hope everyone's from Sunderland or Newcastle or Durham or locally.
08:13 It's not someone being brought in with a bad accent
08:16 or being cast because of who they are.
08:18 So that accent doesn't matter.
08:19 So I really hope it keeps that Geordie, Northeast feel.
08:23 That's the thing for me.
08:24 That's what I really would like to see from it.
08:26 Now, I'm old enough to remember the original run of the show.
08:28 I even remember auditions happening at my school for it.
08:31 But how does it play to a young'un of the 21st century?
08:34 I've been speaking to Shields Gazette reporter Holly Alden,
08:37 who's been captured up on the show.
08:38 So obviously, Biter Grove's a massive part of Northeast culture.
08:41 I love looking about and going, "Oh, well, I know where that is
08:43 and that looks really different now," and things like that.
08:46 So, and obviously, most of all, Ant & Dec.
08:49 I'm a massive Ant & Dec fan.
08:51 And everybody talks about, you know, they've come from Biter Grove.
08:54 So I was like, I want to go back and see what they looked like
08:57 when they were little, what their acting was like.
08:59 I guess the question that brings up then is,
09:02 what do you think of their acting?
09:03 It's not the best.
09:04 But I don't think it isn't anything that they've done.
09:07 You know, they had a cameo in Love Actually,
09:09 and they weren't amazing in that either.
09:11 Even the likes of Charlie Hunnam, who's a huge, huge actor now.
09:15 His start in that wasn't the greatest sort of acting
09:18 because it's people's first role.
09:20 When I sat down and watched, especially the first season,
09:24 yeah, it did seem from the acting styles to, you know,
09:29 kind of the set itself, it was just so '80s,
09:33 even though it was the end of the '80s.
09:35 But I still think that the format of the show
09:38 would work in modern times.
09:39 I think that the plot points were incredibly ahead of their time.
09:43 And of course, Biter Grove provided a lot of valuable experience
09:47 to people in the industry in the Northeast,
09:49 outside of the show's leads.
09:50 Yeah, I was in it when I was in my 19s, 20s.
09:53 I was working for a X-Star TV company,
09:57 and I got a part in Biter Grove being a biker.
09:59 I had to go and disrupt the party that I was doing
10:02 and have a fight scene and hide the chair through the window.
10:05 I've had the honour of being part of the cast of Biter Grove
10:09 from 2002 to 2006, where I actually played
10:13 two different characters.
10:14 Originally, I was cast as a DJ and record shop owner,
10:18 and then I was recast again as Kieran Morrissey,
10:23 the devious boyfriend of one of the young workers at Biter Grove.
10:28 It was kind of, yeah, I liked doing acting anyway,
10:31 so I'm into that sort of thing.
10:33 And meeting some of the cast and the crew and all that,
10:35 and the stuntmen, it's a bit different, you know what I mean?
10:38 Something that people didn't do on a normal basis.
10:40 It opened many doors for me.
10:42 It opened many doors.
10:43 After that, I was cast in quite a few stage shows in the region.
10:47 So the Christmas panto season, they quite often like to have
10:50 current sort of stars of TV and film,
10:54 and I was lucky enough to be cast in probably two or three years
10:58 in a row in local pantomime.
10:59 So it was really great for me as a young actor
11:02 to get that accolade of being part of Biter Grove,
11:05 and it opened doors.
11:05 It was a wonderful, a wonderful start to my career.
11:08 I got my equity card and done Vera, past crimes,
11:12 Way and the Blood, Steel River Blues.
11:14 So I've just pursued acting.
11:16 One thing that always came from Biter Grove
11:18 was the strength of personality,
11:20 the strength of character of Northerners.
11:22 There's quite a lot of talent in the North East
11:24 that a lot of people didn't know about,
11:25 and actors come out when local shows come back.
11:30 And I really hope that it is authentic.
11:32 I hope everyone's from Sunderland or Newcastle or Durham or locally.
11:38 It's not someone being brought in with a bad accent
11:40 or being cast because of who they are,
11:42 so that accent doesn't matter.
11:44 So I really hope it keeps that Geordie, North East feel.
11:48 (upbeat music)