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Kay Mellor

Kay Mellor

Creator

Biography

Kay Mellor OBE (née Daniel; 11 May 1951 - 15 May 2022) was an English actress, scriptwriter, and director best known for her work on several successful television drama series.

Known For

Dramarama
7.3

Dramarama is the name of a British children's anthology series broadcast on ITV between 1983 and 1989. It tended to feature drama of a science fiction or supernatural bent. The series was created by Anna Home, then head of children's and youth programming at TVS, however production responsibilities were divided amongst most of the regional ITV franchise holders. Thus, each episode was in practice a one-off production with its own cast and crew, up to and including the executive producer. Dramarama was largely a place for new talent to prove themselves and was a launching pad for the likes of Anthony Horowitz, Paul Abbott, Kay Mellor, Janice Hally, Tony Kearney, David Tennant and Ann Marie Di Mambro. It was one of Dennis Spooner's last credits. One of Dramarama's episodes, "Dodger, Bonzo And The Rest", gained so much popularity that it was turned in to its own series the following year. It starred Lee Ross and was based around a large foster home. The episode "Blackbird Singing In The Dead of Night" was developed by Granada into the TV series Children's Ward. It was also repeated for the first time since its original broadcast on 5 January 2013, during CITV's 30th anniversary Old Skool Weekend. The Series 7 episode "Back To Front" – notable for featuring a mirror image of the Yorkshire Television logo card at the end – was repeated on 6 January 2013, again as part of CITV's 30th anniversary Old Skool Weekend.

Dramarama

1983Series
Children's Ward
5.3

Children's Ward is a British children's television drama series produced by Granada Television and broadcast on the ITV network as part of its Children's ITV strand on weekday afternoons. The programme was set – as the title suggests – in Ward B1, the children's ward of the fictitious South Park Hospital, and told the stories of the young patients and the staff present there. Aimed at older children and teenagers, Children's Ward was a long-lived series for a children's drama, starting life in 1988 as a contribution to the Dramarama anthology strand, "Blackbird Singing In The Dead of Night", then first broadcast as a series 1989 and running from then until 2000. The series was conceived by Granada staff writers Paul Abbott and Kay Mellor, both of whom went on to enjoy successful careers as award-winning writers of adult television drama. At the time, they were both working on the soap opera Coronation Street, and had recently collaborated on a script for Dramarama. Abbott, who had been through a troubled childhood himself, had initially wanted to set the series in a children's care home rather than a hospital, but this was vetoed by Granada executives. During the course of its run, however, Children's Ward won many plaudits for covering difficult issues such as cancer, alcoholism, drug addiction and child abuse in a sensitive manner. The programme won many awards, including in 1996 a BAFTA Children's Award for Best Drama, won by an episode in which a serial killer lures children to him via the internet and is – highly unusually for children's television – not eventually caught.

Children's Ward

1989Series
Strictly Confidential
4.3

Strictly Confidential is a six-part drama, written by Kay Mellor and originally shown on ITV during November and December 2006. It stars Suranne Jones as Linda, a bisexual ex police officer turned sex therapist, who shares a practice in Leeds with her brother-in-law, played by Tristan Gemmill. Her life is complicated by the fact that her husband Richard, her business partner's brother, played by Christian Solimeno, has low fertility and cannot give her the baby she wants. She is all for asking his brother to be a sperm donor, which does not sit well with his wife. Linda's husband is also not keen on the idea at all but lets Linda go ahead and ask his brother who consents to be a sperm donor. Sexual tension becomes obvious between the pair, and they soon begin sleeping together, with disastrous consequences for all involved, especially Angie, Linda's ex-lover who is still very much in love with Linda.

Strictly Confidential

2006Series
Families
3.5

Families was a daytime soap opera produced by Granada Television and created by Kay Mellor. It followed two families; the Thompsons, based in Cheshire, England, and the Stevens, living in Sydney, Australia. It was produced and recorded at Studio 6 at Granada Studios in Manchester. The link in the storyline was businessman Mike Thompson, who walked out on his family on his birthday and flew to Australia to be with his true love Diana Stevens, whom he had left years earlier. Unbeknownst to Mike, Diana had given birth to his son Andrew and as complications ensued over the abrupt life changes for both families, Andrew travelled to England, where he met Mike’s daughter, Amanda, by his English wife Sue, and they fell in love, not realising that they were half-brother and sister. This plot line was somewhat similar to the opening storyline of the popular Australian soap opera Sons and Daughters which had successfully aired on ITV daytime since 1983. It was broadcast twice a week at 3.20pm with the first episode broadcast on 23 April 1990. Both episodes were also repeated on Thursday 10.40pm in the Granada TV region as part of Granada's "10.40-extra" strand. After two years, stories involving the Thompson and Stevens families—and the UK-Australian crossover angle—had run their course, with several characters either dead or left for pastures new. In their place came the wealthy Bannerman family, who were introduced during the summer of 1992, as they moved into the Thompsons' Cheshire mansion from a suburb of Manchester. In addition, some of the remaining Australian-based characters were re-located to England.

Families

1990Series