By the Bel: Blasts from the Past—Part 8

Though I have been concentrating on Aussie-made TV for young adults in the 90s, there were some decent shows to come from other countries in the same era.  Made from 1989 through to 1993, The Press Gang gave many of us an edgy and humorous look at how the English view their teens.
“Originally aired on ABC TV, Press Gang was a BAFTA Award-winning series chronicling the world of youth newspaper the Junior Gazette, run by high school students in the fictional city of Norbridge.”

Lynda Day (played by Julia Sawalha) is a rather stressed editor and chief, and is begrudgingly backed up by bad boy, Spike (Dexter Fletcher). Paul Reynolds played the consummate sleaze bag, Collin Mathews, that you just can’t help feeling somewhat sorry for.

The writing credits go to Steven Moffat, based on an idea by Bill Moffat. It was filmed on location in Uxbridge and Hayes in England.

This series, besides getting the giggles with fast-paced wit and stereotypical character types, really took a swipe at the way teens were seen as being useless and lazy. The characters worked hard to get that newspaper on the shelves,  learning along the way about what makes a good news story and when to draw the line.

They tackled some really hard issues, from terrorism to teen suicide, drug addiction, and adultery, interpersonal relationships at work and a little bit about love along the way.

Here’s a clip from Season 1…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpaZcBoj-qY

and the complete series is available on DVD.

This really was a huge step towards treating teens as intelligent members of society. It was prior to the time when ‘youth’ started being used as a derogatory term to describe young delinquents. For so many in this decade the motto for the Junior Gazette really did describe the show: “A voice for today’s youth.”