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<blockquote data-quote="Mel O&amp;#039;Drama" data-source="post: 289952" data-attributes="member: 23">It&#039;s a shame Richmond Hill didn&#039;t really have a chance to get the support from the UK audiences. By the time it began airing here, the writing was on the wall as far as it the axe goes.I may be misremembering, but I have it in my head that ITV had planned to give RH a far more prestigious treatment than it ended up getting (perhaps even prime time). As it was, it was shown in the afternoon and was un-networked in the same way most of the underdog Eighties Aussie soaps like S&amp;D, The Young Doctors and Prisoner were. This meant each ITV region was free to show it on different day and times and at different paces (which meant there was absolutely no chance for it to register in the ratings, which were quite important at the time).I think my ITV region showed the series at a reasonable pace, with two regular hourly slots a week. I only watched infrequently, but my memory of it is as a reasonably light and workaday kind of show with a good heart and a great cast. I don&#039;t recall the grim, heavy tone mentioned, so perhaps I watched more of the later episodes. The opening credits made it feel, to me, like an ersatz Neighbours. I do remember recording the final episode on a red sixty minute VHS cassette which I&#039;d been saving for something special.Gwen Plumb had appeared in the Pilot of Home And Away, but turned down the series in order to do Richmond Hill. I often wondered how she felt about that, given H&amp;A&#039;s longevity. But it all worked out for the best: Mum Foote was probably a far meatier role for her than gossipy Doris Peters (who was virtually Ada Simmonds redux).Despite one small appearance, Doris Peters was kept alive in the early years of H&amp;A, often mentioned in dialogue as a gossipy rival to Celia Stewart (who effectively replaced her for the series), managing to stir things up without even being seen again. It would have been great if Gwen had returned Doris to the series after RH was axed (and especially after Fiona Spence left the show). As it was, IMDb tells me she had a short run as a completely different H&amp;A character in the mid-Nineties.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mel O'Drama, post: 289952, member: 23"] It's a shame [I]Richmond Hill [/I]didn't really have a chance to get the support from the UK audiences. By the time it began airing here, the writing was on the wall as far as it the axe goes. I may be misremembering, but I have it in my head that ITV had planned to give RH a far more prestigious treatment than it ended up getting (perhaps even prime time). As it was, it was shown in the afternoon and was un-networked in the same way most of the underdog Eighties Aussie soaps like [I]S&D, The Young Doctors [/I]and[I] Prisoner [/I]were. This meant each ITV region was free to show it on different day and times and at different paces (which meant there was absolutely no chance for it to register in the ratings, which were quite important at the time). I think my ITV region showed the series at a reasonable pace, with two regular hourly slots a week. I only watched infrequently, but my memory of it is as a reasonably light and workaday kind of show with a good heart and a great cast. I don't recall the grim, heavy tone mentioned, so perhaps I watched more of the later episodes. The opening credits made it feel, to me, like an ersatz [I]Neighbours[/I]. I do remember recording the final episode on a red sixty minute VHS cassette which I'd been saving for something special. Gwen Plumb had appeared in the Pilot of [I]Home And Away,[/I] but turned down the series in order to do [I]Richmond Hill.[/I] I often wondered how she felt about that, given H&A's longevity. But it all worked out for the best: Mum Foote was probably a far meatier role for her than gossipy Doris Peters (who was virtually Ada Simmonds redux). Despite one small appearance, Doris Peters was kept alive in the early years of[I] H&A, [/I]often mentioned in dialogue as a gossipy rival to Celia Stewart (who effectively replaced her for the series), managing to stir things up without even being seen again. It would have been great if Gwen had returned Doris to the series after [I]RH[/I] was axed (and especially after Fiona Spence left the show). As it was, IMDb tells me she had a short run as a completely different H&A character in the mid-Nineties. [/QUOTE]

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