Families

Families is a daytime soap opera, which was on ITV from 1990 to 1993 and created by Kay Mellor. It followed two families; the Thompsons, based in Cheshire, England (in the fictional market town of Westbury), and the Stevens, living in Sydney. It was produced and recorded at Studio 6 at Granada Studios in Manchester. History It was broadcast twice a week (Monday and Tuesday) at 3.20 pm with the first episode broadcast on 23 April 1990. Both episodes were also repeated on Thursday 10.40 pm in the Granada TV region as part of Granada's "10.40-extra" strand. The show was unusual for a daytime soap, regularly tackling subjects that at the time would have been deemed controversial for a prime time soap. These included murder, suicide, incest, drugs, adultery, prostitution, mental health problems and homosexuality. It also contained some strong language and scenes of a sexual nature, all of which were screened, in most ITV regions, just before children's TV started at 15.50. In its later months the show was screened at 14.45–15.15. The theme music was by Matthew Scott. The Granada-produced soap ceased production in July 1993, to make way for daytime repeats of Coronation Street and Emmerdale. The last show episode of 320 was broadcast in August 1993. It had a dramatic feature length finale which saw a birth, a possible suicide and a large and unexpected inheritance. Several of those who worked on the series later went on to higher-profile careers: Jude Law was a regular cast member for two years (as Nathan Thompson) and Russell T Davies wrote for the programme. Amanda Wenban went from Families to star in the Yorkshire Television soap Emmerdale before heading back to Cheshire to play the role of Ruth Tyler in the second series of Russell T Davies' camp and ironic late night soapy-drama Revelations.