JANE HALL

12 July, 2006 by The_Boss

ITV1 Wednesday 12th July 2006 9:00pm to 10:00pm

JANE HALL tells the bumpy tale of our funny and shy heroine Jane who embarks on a life changing journey from Huddersfield to Hounslow – and impulsively finds herself signing up as a new recruit - driving double decker buses.

It's a colourful and quirky six-part drama series with dark undertones for primetime ITV1, written by SALLY WAINWRIGHT (At Home With The Braithwaites).

Hoping that life is going to be sweeter in the big smoke, Jane (SARAH SMART - At Home With The Braithwaites, Murder Prevention, Funland) is whisked away on a route littered with mishap, love and betrayal with riotous highs and turbulent lows at every stop.

To top it all Jane has her very own know-it-all altar ego, who only appears to her at the most inappropriate times, with full Broadway style production numbers and slick Matrix special effects – which happen to always be in full and surreal Technicolor …...

Jane soon gets mixed up in the vibrant lives of her work colleagues: the bus depot’s flamboyant and adulterous Mandy (GILLIAN TAYLFORTH - Footballers’ Wives), her hoodwinked husband Dave (ROBERT GLENISTER - Hustle), Sid, one of her lust driven lovers (NITIN GANATRA - Meet The Magoons), sexy Steve (NOEL CLARKE - Dr Who Kidulthood), mouthy Lillian (ANN MITCHELL - Widows), sinister Barry (IAN REDDINGTON - Coronation Street), and the long suffering Helen (SUZANNA HAMILTON - Casualty) whose own personal life is torn apart.

Jane also finds herself in a love triangle with her housemates, the gorgeous Richard (DANIEL LAPAINE - Muriel’s Wedding, I Saw You) and oddball Robert (STEPHEN MANGAN - Green Wing, Confetti). Not to mention their other housemate, the desperately single and seeking Karen (CAROLINE O’NEILL - The Worst Witch, Queer As Folk) and Jane’s overbearing parents Lorraine (GERALDINE JAMES - Band Of Gold, Little Britain) and Gareth (JOHN DUTTINE - Heartbeat).

JANE HALL filmed on location in London and Manchester and is made by RED PRODUCTION COMPANY (Second Coming, Clocking Off, Queer as Folk, Casanova), executive produced by RED’S NICOLA SHINDLER and co-produced by SALLY WAINWRIGHT and MATTHEW BIRD (Class of ’76, New Street Law). Directed by SYD MACARTNEY (Linda Green, Being April) and EUROS LYN (Dr. Who, Cutting It).

SALLY WAINWRIGHT says: “I spent 18 months as a London bus driver and it was an absurd situation for me to be in as I was a naive, shy, middle class graduate from the North in an urban working class male environment.

"I took the daily vitriolic insults from members of the public personally, whereas for most of the other drivers it was water of a duck’s back. If anything bad, dangerous or downright embarrassing was going to happen on a double decker, it would have happened on mine!”

Twenty-something Jane Hall (SARAH SMART) is shy, hapless and chronically unemployed. She decides after yet another massive row with her controlling mum Lorraine (GERALDINE JAMES) and her mild-mannered dad Gareth (JOHN DUTTINE) to finally move out of her parents’ home in Huddersfield, and radically change her life. She heads straight for the bright lights of the big smoke – London.

On the overnight bus to London, Jane is accompanied by her brighter, more confident alter-ego, Fantasy Jane, who regularly pops in and out of her life to pass comment, or – in a sticky situation – to act out one of Jane’s fantasy problem-solving scenarios, in full Technicolour!

Jane turns up unannounced on the doorstep of old university pal Richard (DANIEL LAPAINE) - the most perfect man in the world, not to mention the man she lost her virginity to! More than happy to see her, she ends up moving into his shared house in Arden Gardens.

Her new housemates include brash and desperately single fellow Yorkshire woman Karen (CAROLINE O’NEILL) and the taciturn, sardonic Robert (STEPHEN MANGAN). Jane’s over the moon to be living with gorgeous, every-mother’s-dream-son-in-law-material Richard – if only it wasn’t for his vacant but beautiful air hostess girlfriend Tanya.

Jane really needs to find a job. Torn between the novelty of driving a London bus for a living after seeing an ad on the side of a bus; or the security of a career in the civil service, where Richard already works - Jane is drawn into the colourful world...at the bus depot.

From day one, life is not what she expects. Learning to drive a bus, let alone master the routes, and dealing with the public is no mean feat for a shy and retiring girl. Making new friends with her co-workers also gets off to a somewhat shaky start.

Her fellow female driver – the flamboyant, adulterous Mandy (GILLIAN TAYLFORTH) – reluctantly befriends her after Jane discovers Mandy juggling her shifts with lovers Steve (NOEL CLARKE), Sid (NITIN GANATRA) and husband Dave (ROBERT GLENISTER) who all work alongside each other. And when Barry (IAN REDDINGTON) – a mysteriously sinister driver – threatens Jane and tries to make her life a misery, Jane is unexpectedly rescued by another driver; quiet, ostracised Helen (SUZANNA HAMILTON).

Between the bus garage and Arden Gardens Jane’s life changes into a rollercoaster ride living her life from one comical drama to another – a drunken late night snog with housemate Robert at the local sewage works, still fancying Richard, catching Mandy shagging, to getting lost on her bus route and ending up in a cul-de-sac!

Welcome to the world that is JANE HALL.