Night and Day is a British mystery soap opera, produced by Granada Television for LWT, that first broadcast on 6 November 2001 on ITV, and ran until 5 June 2003. The series was launched as part of ITV's new early evening line-up, with an enormous amount of pre-publicity and trailers promoting the series. The series was written and created by screenwriter Caleb Ranson, with other contributors to the series including John Jackson, Jessica Townsend, Cris Cole, Elizabeth Delaney, Jeff Dodds, Robert Fraser, Adrian Hewitt, Martha Jay, Charles Lambert, Ed McCardie, Adrian Pagan, Bradley Quirk, Tony Ramsay and Catherine Stedman. The series opening theme, "Always & Forever", was performed by Kylie Minogue.

At first, the series rated well, even drawing comparisons to series such as Twin Peaks. However, as the series storylines became more bizarre and complex, it began to rate poorly, only gaining a small, cult fanbase, and was pushed to a later timeslot due to the lack of mainstream interest. Subsequently, little more than six months after the series premiered, filming wrapped on 17 May 2002, and the series was later axed by station executives, who cited low ratings as the principal reason. The final episode aired on screen on 5 June 2003.

Synopsis

The series begins on the sixteenth birthday of best friends Jane Harper and Della Wells, who live in the same street in Greenwich. This was in response to the series' viewing figures rapidly declining, attracting only a 9% audience share and being beaten in the ratings by BBC Two's The Weakest Link and Channel 4's Richard & Judy.

The series' removal was so sudden that TV listings for the next week still advertised it. Speaking of the decision to axe the teatime episodes, Tony Woods, then head of continuing drama at ITV, stated that "The series has already established itself as cult viewing for young adults, and re-positioning it with a debut broadcast in the evening will build on its appeal". The series continued to air the hour long episodes in a later time slot, with some episodes airing as late as 2AM. Most episodes also aired later than billed, some almost ten minutes behind the advertised schedule. The vacant teatime slot was filled by repeats of game shows such as Catchphrase, You've Been Framed and Family Fortunes. Eventually, in January 2003, a relaunched version of Crossroads aired in the slot, before it too was also cancelled after only a few months on air. The final hour long 'omnibus' episode aired on 5 June 2003 and attracted 500,000 viewers, despite airing at 00:30.

In Australia, the series screened on ABC TV. It originally aired at 6pm on weeknights, as a lead into the evening news, but the later episodes were predominantly screened very late at night, in a similar fashion to the UK broadcast; although these retained the thirty-minute format.

Production

With the loss of Home and Away to Channel 5 in early 2000, the ITV network centre decided to tender bids from various UK production companies for a new British soap to replace it. United Productions pitched an idea with the working title of "Life, Etc" that was to be 'about a group of friends "watching their children grow up before they have finished growing up themselves"'. Further in to development, the working title of the series change to "Trafalgar Road", which was later abandoned due to an existing street having that name in the filming location of Greenwich.

The series was first unveiled by ITV executives on 27 April 2001, before the leading cast were announced on 9 May.

'Thornton Street' was in reality King George Street SE10, one of the most historic areas of Greenwich. Other locations in Greenwich included the Cutty Sark pub, the Old Greenwich Hospital and Greenwich Park. 'St Vincents Halfway House' was actually in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Interior shots were filmed at the Three Mills Studios in Bow.

Night and Day was nominated for ten awards at the British Soap Awards 2002, beating established rivals such as Hollyoaks and Emmerdale. It won one award, 'Hero of the year' (chosen by a panel of judges) for the character of Sam giving up football to look after his orphaned siblings. Filming had finished the day before the British Soap Awards.

Some five weeks before the final episode aired in 2003, many TV guides flagged up the week’s episode as the 'last in series'. Indeed, the Radio Times even printed a double page feature about the shows demise after 17 months on air. Quite why this error could have happened is unknown. This led to some fans thinking the series had ended on a knife-edge cliffhanger when in fact the next five weeks tied up all the loose ends to all plots.

In 2006, the Radio Times ran a small article about the fifth anniversary of Night and Days premiere. The programme was described as being stylish but with little substance.

The series was never released on video or DVD. The sheer number of songs used on the soundtrack throughout the series would make a DVD release financially impractical as each artist would need to be paid a royalty fee. At the time of the shows final transmission rumours circulated on fan message boards of a clause in the production contract that prevents a rerun of the series until five years after its initial transmission. This has not been confirmed by ITV or LWT. As of , more than twenty years since the final episode, the series has never been repeated on broadcast television or streaming services in the United Kingdom.

BFI Mediatheque archive

Night and Day is partially available to view at the BFI Mediatheque, South Bank, London. 145 episode records are listed in the database, the majority of which are viewable at the Mediatheque.

Cast

Main cast

  • Georgina Walker as Jane Harper; beautiful, mysterious, bitchy and intimidating, Jane was the golden girl of the neighbourhood, the girl who had everything...or at least that is how it seemed.
  • Nick Schofield as Ryan Harper; Jane's older brother is handsome, but insecure. A master manipulator, Ryan has learnt how to use people to his own will, and soon begins retreating back into this as he deals with being part of a broken home.
  • Sally Dexter as Dr. Natalie Harper; Birth name: Natalie Brake. Jane's mother, a G.P. Despite being very highly-strung and quite secure, Natalie's initial ability to deal with her daughter's disappearance masks her true crumbling nature.
  • Tim Wallers as Duncan Harper; Jane's father, subordinate to Natalie. Unlike Natalie and her friends, Duncan did not grow up in the area and feels increasingly alone as past events come back to haunt others, while he cannot understand what is going on.
  • Stephanie Leonidas as Della Wells; Jane's best friend, shares her birthday. Della is blossoming into her own woman, but has always lived in the shadow of Jane, and always wanted to better understand her best friend. She has fallen in love with mysterious Josh Alexander who seems just as smitten with her, but her overprotective dad Alex is an obstacle in the way of true love.
  • Lysette Anthony as Roxanne Doyle;