Springhill (partially lost second series of British soap opera; 1997)
Title card for Springhill.
Status: Partially Lost
Springhill is a British TV series broadcast on Sky One and Channel Four between 1996 and 1997, co-created by Paul Abbott and Frank Cottrell Boyce.
The show had two series. The first series was released on DVD in 2013 by Acorn Media [1]. The second series has never seen a physical release and, outside of a brief inclusion on a relatively obscure streaming service, has not been made publicly available for viewing. As such, it is now considered lost.
Premise
Springhill was a soap opera with supernatural elements, combining storylines about family feuds, homosexuality and infidelity with ones featuring angels, time travel, witchcraft and more. In it, a woman called Eva Morrigan arrives at a Liverpool council estate and disrupts the life of the Freeman family by revealing she's the actual mother of three of Freeman's children. This develops into a battle between Good and Evil over a baby who's the second coming of Christ, which is fought between Eva, Liz Freeman (the mother of the Freeman family) and Marian (the Freeman's new housekeeper who's secretly an angel).[2]
Historical Significance / Connection to Doctor Who
The show is notable for being one of the first televised works of many writers who would go to be incredibly successful and well known. These include Paul Abbott (writer of Shameless, State of Play and Touching Evil) [3], Russell T. Davies (the first head writer of the reboot of Doctor Who) [4] and Frank Cotrell-Boyce (now a highly renowned screenwriter and children's author) [5].
The series is of particular interest to Doctor Who fans as four of the show's writers would go on to work on its 2005 reboot, these being Russell T. Davies, Paul Cornell, Gareth Roberts and Frank Cottrell Boyce. Given that Russell T. Davies was the first head writer of the Doctor Who reboot (in which he famously merged the show's sci-fi imagery with soap opera plotting), it has been theorized that Springhill is in many ways a rough prototype for many of the ideas and techniques that his era of Doctor Who would go on to use.[6]
Release / Availability
The first series was released on DVD to the US market in 2013 by Acorn Media.[7] Though now out of print, second-hand copies can still occasionally be found on the internet.
The second series never received a DVD release and was instead uploaded to AcornTV, Acorn Media's online streaming service. [8] It was only available on that service until November 30th, 2014 though and, since being taken down, has never been released or re-uploaded anywhere else, effectively making it lost. [9]
Found Episodes
On September 24th 2020, scholar Elizabeth Sandifer announced that she had been able to acquire the second series from a collector, confirming that copies of the show are in circulation (albeit not publicly).[10] Unfortunately, she can't reveal the name of the collector she got it from, nor can she share/upload the series herself. [11]
On May 6th 2021, the YouTube Channel AnalogueArtifice uploaded an episode of the programme; it was quickly confirmed to be the final episode of the second series and the series finale.
Gallery
See Also
- Beacon Hill (lost television soap opera; 1975)
- Coronation Street "Episode 1202" (lost episode of ITV soap opera; 1972)
- The Corsairs (lost pilot for ABC soap opera; 2002)
- Dark Shadows "1219" (partially found episode of gothic soap opera TV series; 1971)
- EastEnders (lost broadcast tapes of BBC soap opera; 1986; 1989)
- EastEnders (lost footage of Frances Cuka's scenes and Barbara Windsor's auditions as Peggy Mitchell; 1991-1994)
- EastEnders (lost footage of Jean Fennell as Angie Watts; 1984)
- El Oasis (partially found Latin American telenovela; 1994-1997)
- Emmerdale Farm (lost episodes of ITV soap opera; existence unconfirmed; 1981)
- Executive Suite (partially found television soap opera; 1976-1977)
- Faraway Hill (lost early soap opera; 1946)
- Florizel Street (lost dry runs of Coronation Street; 1960)
- Hiwaga sa Bahay na Bato (lost Filipino TV soap opera; 1962-1963)
- Models Inc. (found primetime soap opera; 1994-1995)
- Neighbours "Episode 3896" (partially found episode of Australian soap opera; 2001)
- O Direito de Nascer (lost adaptation of a radio play to TV; 1964)
- Pardon the Expression (lost pilots of Coronation Street sitcom spin-off; 1965)
- Seven, Bessie Street (partially found soap opera script of Coronation Street creator; pre-1957)
- United! (lost British soap opera; 1965-1967)
External Links
- Springhill's IMDb page. Retrieved 22 May '20
References
- ↑ https://www.acornonline.com/XA6482.html Retrieved 22 May '20
- ↑ Aldridge, M. and Murray, A. 2008. T is for Television: The Small Screen Adventures of Russell T. Davies. UK: Reynolds & Hearn Ltd. Available at: https://www.amazon.com/Television-Screen-Adventures-Russell-Davies/dp/1905287844 Retrieved 22 May '20
- ↑ http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/970032/index.html Retrieved 8 Nov '20
- ↑ http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/1256045/index.html Retrieved 8 Nov '20
- ↑ https://www.northernsoul.me.uk/frank-cottrell-boyce/ Retrieved 8 Nov '20
- ↑ http://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/pop-between-realities-home-in-time-for-tea-47-touching-evil-the-grand-springhill/ Retrieved 22 May '20
- ↑ https://www.acornonline.com/XA6482.html Retrieved 22 May '20
- ↑ https://uk.acorn.tv/ Retrieved 8 Nov '20
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20131024112454mp_/http://acorn.tv/#franchise/springhill Retrieve 22 May '20
- ↑ https://twitter.com/ElSandifer/status/1309184113518284801 Retrieved 30 September '20
- ↑ https://twitter.com/ElSandifer/status/1309198226000695300 Retrieve 30 September '20