Burn It
Encyclopedia
Burn It was a drama series, with touches of dark comedy, following the lives of three twenty-somethings in present-day Manchester
.
going through life without any real responsibilities to worry them. However, whilst this was understandable in the Madchester
era of the late 1980s, is it acceptable now as they approach thirty? When does the party end?
To a soundtrack of North West England
bands and musicians, including New Order
, The Stone Roses
and The Charlatans to name but a few, the show displayed a lazy world of drinking, drug consumption, and casual sex. However, the show was careful to show the consequences of such lifetsyle choices and searingly touched on suicide, unwanted pregnancies, apathy and disillusionment.
According to Red Production Company
a DVD
release is not possible due to difficulty in clearing copyrights for music used.
, and then repeated some months later on the terrestrial channel BBC2. There were two series of Burn It: series one consisted of ten approximately 30-minute episodes and ran from 9 February 2003 to 8 April 2003; the second series spanned eleven episodes and ran from 8 September 2003 to 10 November 2003.
and produced by Red Production Company
, an organisation most notable for its many cutting-edge, northern dramas such as Clocking Off
, Conviction http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412107/, New Street Law
and Linda Green
.
Lisa Faulkner
and Chris Coghill
met whilst filming, and subsequently married in April 2005 at Pembroke Lodge, Richmond Park
, Surrey
.
Chris Fountain
made an early acting appearance in the show, and later moved on to play Justin in the Channel 4
teenage soap opera
Hollyoaks
, set in Chester
.
The responsibilities of potential fatherhood are weighing down on each in a different way: Carl's girlfriend is desperate for commitment, Jon is torturing himself over the daughter he gave up for adoption when he was 17, and Andy discovers that it is he who may be soon enjoying the pleasures of being a parent. This sets off a series of events, leading each to explore their new challenges and grow past their Gen X labels. Jon slowly builds a relationship with both his daughter and her mother (Tina). While, Andy's relationship with Emma experiences its ups and downs, with an unfortunate ending. Carl attempts to settle both his financial and personal life to that of an adult.
Series Two
Carl and Emma are in love, although Carl is reluctant to broadcast the fact. Forced to do so has negative effects on his friendships. Jon begins a downward spiral that ends with a second suicide attempt forcing him to grow up and become a parent. Andy returns and havoc for Carl and Emma soon ensue. By the end of the series each character has found their place in the world.
Episode One
The responsibilities of potential fatherhood are weighing down on each in a different way: Carl's girlfriend is desperate for commitment and so announces she is pregnant to Carl in order to ensure he does not split up with her. However, he then finds out she is on her period and thus not pregnant and leaves her for lying to him. Jon is torturing himself over the daughter he gave up for adoption when he was 17, whilst Emma sets him up on a blind date with her friend Claire. Andy, having ribbed Carl about becoming a parent, discovers that it is he who may be soon enjoying the pleasures of being a parent.
Whilst on a job, Carl meets Kelly, the 18 year-old daughter of one if his clients.
Episode Two
Jon takes drastic action when he finds out that his parents are divorcing and that he has no right to have contact with his daughter. Meanwhile, Andy is uncertain about girlfriend Emma's decision to abort their baby, and Carl having fun with 18-year-old Kelly, the daughter of one of his clients.
Episode Three
Carl pledges to help Jon find his daughter, but the first step is to find Tina. Emma demands a change of lifestyle after Andy is attacked on his round.
Episode Four
Jon's sudden appearance in Tina's life has opened up a can of worms. Andy's lack of ambition is starting to irritate Emma. Carl also has a problem - it's his 30th birthday and only Andy wants to go out.
Episode Five
Jon is loving his new role as a dad, but it is not all plain sailing. A restless Carl feels Australia beckoning. Emma finds her loyalties put to the test.
Episode Six
Andy and Emma's break-up leads to a one-night stand for Emma, and unprecedented feelings of jealousy and remorse for Andy.
Episode Seven
Jon faces some angry attempts at blackmail from his new-found daughter, who is still stung by the belief that she was abandoned. Andy and Emma throw an engagement party. Carl deals with his growing feelings for Emma by getting drunk.
Episode Eight
Carl is feeling tortured with guilt. Jon is brooding over Tina. Emma has made a drastic decision, but a phone call throws everything into turmoil.
Episode Nine
Jon tells the truth about the adoption and more. Andy asks the boys to throw him a stag night. Carl shirks the duties of Carl's stag night. An emergency cuts the night short.
Episode Ten
After the death of his mum, Emma vows to make Andy happy. Tina has news for Jon. Is Carl breaking up the lads' friendship for good?
2003 Royal Television Society North West Awards, Best Performance In A Network Drama, Chris Coghill
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
.
About
The series followed Carl, Andy and Jon as three self-proclaimed Generation X-ersGeneration X
Generation X, commonly abbreviated to Gen X, is the generation born after the Western post–World War II baby boom ended. While there is no universally agreed upon time frame, the term generally includes people born from the early 1960's through the early 1980's, usually no later than 1981 or...
going through life without any real responsibilities to worry them. However, whilst this was understandable in the Madchester
Madchester
Madchester was a music scene that developed in Manchester, England, towards the end of the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The music that emerged from the scene mixed alternative rock, psychedelic rock and dance music...
era of the late 1980s, is it acceptable now as they approach thirty? When does the party end?
To a soundtrack of North West England
North West England
North West England, informally known as The North West, is one of the nine official regions of England.North West England had a 2006 estimated population of 6,853,201 the third most populated region after London and the South East...
bands and musicians, including New Order
New Order
New Order are an English rock band formed in 1980 by Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris...
, The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses are an English alternative rock band formed in Manchester in 1983. They were one of the pioneering groups of the Madchester movement that was active during the late 1980s and early 1990s...
and The Charlatans to name but a few, the show displayed a lazy world of drinking, drug consumption, and casual sex. However, the show was careful to show the consequences of such lifetsyle choices and searingly touched on suicide, unwanted pregnancies, apathy and disillusionment.
According to Red Production Company
Red Production Company
Red Production Company is a British independent television production company, formed in 1998 by Nicola Shindler, an experienced television producer who had worked on such prestige dramas as Our Friends in the North and Cracker...
a DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
release is not possible due to difficulty in clearing copyrights for music used.
Broadcast History
Burn It was first shown on the free-to-air British digital channel BBC ThreeBBC Three
BBC Three is a television network from the BBC broadcasting via digital cable, terrestrial, IPTV and satellite platforms. The channel's target audience includes those in the 16-34 year old age group, and has the purpose of providing "innovative" content to younger audiences, focusing on new talent...
, and then repeated some months later on the terrestrial channel BBC2. There were two series of Burn It: series one consisted of ten approximately 30-minute episodes and ran from 9 February 2003 to 8 April 2003; the second series spanned eleven episodes and ran from 8 September 2003 to 10 November 2003.
Creative Team
Burn It was written by Matt GreenhalghMatt Greenhalgh
Matt Greenhalgh is an English screenwriter. He created and wrote the BBC television series Burn It, and the television film Legless. He adapted Deborah Curtis's Touching From a Distance—a biopic of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis—into the 2007 film Control, for which he was nominated for the...
and produced by Red Production Company
Red Production Company
Red Production Company is a British independent television production company, formed in 1998 by Nicola Shindler, an experienced television producer who had worked on such prestige dramas as Our Friends in the North and Cracker...
, an organisation most notable for its many cutting-edge, northern dramas such as Clocking Off
Clocking Off
Clocking Off is a British television drama series which ran on the BBC One network for four series from 2000 to 2003. It was produced for the BBC by the independent Red Production Company, and created by Paul Abbott...
, Conviction http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412107/, New Street Law
New Street Law
New Street Law is a British legal drama television series produced by Red Production Company in association with One-Eyed Dog Ltd for BBC One. The series was created by G. F. Newman and Matthew Hall, and starred an ensemble cast headed by John Hannah and Paul Freeman...
and Linda Green
Linda Green
Linda Green is a British television comedy-drama series that lasted for two series, screened in 2001 and 2002. The twenty half-hour episodes were broadcast on BBC One and produced for the BBC by the independent Red Production Company....
.
Main cast
| Actor | Character | Series | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chris Coghill Chris Coghill Christopher "Chris" Coghill is an actor and writer from Prestwich, Greater Manchester, England. Coghill is best known for his deep voice and has a history of portraying criminals.-Career:... |
Carl | 1-2 | 2003–2004 |
| William Ash William Ash (actor) William Ash, is a British TV and film actor.-Career:His appearances include Making Out ,Mad About Mambo, Lilies, Burn It, All the King's Men, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Doctor Who and more recently Hush and Waterloo Road. He began his career in the ITV series Where the Heart Is... |
Jon | 1-2 | 2003–2004 |
| Kieran O'Brien Kieran O'Brien Kieran O'Brien is an English actor.-Biography:O'Brien, who grew up in nearby Royton, began acting at a early age and was the star of a BBC TV series Gruey by the time he was 15. He also featured in several other series at the time in one-off or recurring roles... |
Andy | 1-2 | 2003–2004 |
| Lisa Faulkner Lisa Faulkner Lisa Tamsin Faulkner is an English actress and television personality.-Early life:Faulkner was educated at Tiffin Girls' School, Kingston upon Thames.When Faulkner was 16, her mother, Julie, died of cancer... |
Emma | 1-2 | 2003–2004 |
| Melanie Brown Melanie Brown Melanie Janine "Scary Spice" Brown , often better known as Mel B, is an English pop singer-songwriter, actress, author and television presenter... |
Claire | 1 | 2003 |
| Marsha Thomason Marsha Thomason Marsha Lisa Thomason is an English actress, who is known in the United States for playing Nessa Holt in the first two seasons of the NBC series Las Vegas, for her recurring role on ABC's Lost as Naomi Dorrit, and for playing FBI agent Diana Berrigan on USA Network's White Collar.-Early... |
Tina | 1-2 | 2003–2004 |
| Iain McKee Iain McKee Iain McKee is an English actor best known for his role as Frank Gadney in BBC1 drama series Lilies and Michael in BBC sitcom The Visit. He is originally from Bolton and now lives in North London, UK.-Filmography:... |
Paul | 1-2 | 2003–2004 |
Lisa Faulkner
Lisa Faulkner
Lisa Tamsin Faulkner is an English actress and television personality.-Early life:Faulkner was educated at Tiffin Girls' School, Kingston upon Thames.When Faulkner was 16, her mother, Julie, died of cancer...
and Chris Coghill
Chris Coghill
Christopher "Chris" Coghill is an actor and writer from Prestwich, Greater Manchester, England. Coghill is best known for his deep voice and has a history of portraying criminals.-Career:...
met whilst filming, and subsequently married in April 2005 at Pembroke Lodge, Richmond Park
Richmond Park
Richmond Park is a 2,360 acre park within London. It is the largest of the Royal Parks in London and Britain's second largest urban walled park after Sutton Park, Birmingham. It is close to Richmond, Ham, Kingston upon Thames, Wimbledon, Roehampton and East Sheen...
, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
.
Chris Fountain
Chris Fountain
Christopher Ryan Fountain is an English actor best known for his role as Justin Burton on the Channel 4 teen soap Hollyoaks, a role he played from 2003 until his departure in June 2009. He is also now known for playing Tommy Duckworth in Coronation Street. He played the role of PC Paul Tait in...
made an early acting appearance in the show, and later moved on to play Justin in the Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
teenage soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
Hollyoaks
Hollyoaks
Hollyoaks is a long-running British television soap opera, first broadcast on Channel 4 on 23 October 1995. It was originally devised by Phil Redmond, who has also devised shows including Brookside and Grange Hill...
, set in Chester
Chester
Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...
.
Series Synopses
Series OneThe responsibilities of potential fatherhood are weighing down on each in a different way: Carl's girlfriend is desperate for commitment, Jon is torturing himself over the daughter he gave up for adoption when he was 17, and Andy discovers that it is he who may be soon enjoying the pleasures of being a parent. This sets off a series of events, leading each to explore their new challenges and grow past their Gen X labels. Jon slowly builds a relationship with both his daughter and her mother (Tina). While, Andy's relationship with Emma experiences its ups and downs, with an unfortunate ending. Carl attempts to settle both his financial and personal life to that of an adult.
Series Two
Carl and Emma are in love, although Carl is reluctant to broadcast the fact. Forced to do so has negative effects on his friendships. Jon begins a downward spiral that ends with a second suicide attempt forcing him to grow up and become a parent. Andy returns and havoc for Carl and Emma soon ensue. By the end of the series each character has found their place in the world.
Episode guide
Series OneEpisode One
The responsibilities of potential fatherhood are weighing down on each in a different way: Carl's girlfriend is desperate for commitment and so announces she is pregnant to Carl in order to ensure he does not split up with her. However, he then finds out she is on her period and thus not pregnant and leaves her for lying to him. Jon is torturing himself over the daughter he gave up for adoption when he was 17, whilst Emma sets him up on a blind date with her friend Claire. Andy, having ribbed Carl about becoming a parent, discovers that it is he who may be soon enjoying the pleasures of being a parent.
Whilst on a job, Carl meets Kelly, the 18 year-old daughter of one if his clients.
Episode Two
Jon takes drastic action when he finds out that his parents are divorcing and that he has no right to have contact with his daughter. Meanwhile, Andy is uncertain about girlfriend Emma's decision to abort their baby, and Carl having fun with 18-year-old Kelly, the daughter of one of his clients.
Episode Three
Carl pledges to help Jon find his daughter, but the first step is to find Tina. Emma demands a change of lifestyle after Andy is attacked on his round.
Episode Four
Jon's sudden appearance in Tina's life has opened up a can of worms. Andy's lack of ambition is starting to irritate Emma. Carl also has a problem - it's his 30th birthday and only Andy wants to go out.
Episode Five
Jon is loving his new role as a dad, but it is not all plain sailing. A restless Carl feels Australia beckoning. Emma finds her loyalties put to the test.
Episode Six
Andy and Emma's break-up leads to a one-night stand for Emma, and unprecedented feelings of jealousy and remorse for Andy.
Episode Seven
Jon faces some angry attempts at blackmail from his new-found daughter, who is still stung by the belief that she was abandoned. Andy and Emma throw an engagement party. Carl deals with his growing feelings for Emma by getting drunk.
Episode Eight
Carl is feeling tortured with guilt. Jon is brooding over Tina. Emma has made a drastic decision, but a phone call throws everything into turmoil.
Episode Nine
Jon tells the truth about the adoption and more. Andy asks the boys to throw him a stag night. Carl shirks the duties of Carl's stag night. An emergency cuts the night short.
Episode Ten
After the death of his mum, Emma vows to make Andy happy. Tina has news for Jon. Is Carl breaking up the lads' friendship for good?
Award Nominations
2003 Royal Television Society North West Awards, Best Cable Programme2003 Royal Television Society North West Awards, Best Performance In A Network Drama, Chris Coghill
Chris Coghill
Christopher "Chris" Coghill is an actor and writer from Prestwich, Greater Manchester, England. Coghill is best known for his deep voice and has a history of portraying criminals.-Career:...