PHIL REDMOND led the first of his two revolutions in television drama at the age of 29, when he persuaded the BBC to show a children’s programme that featured bullying, heroin addiction and teenage sex.
Grange Hill, a drama set in an inner-city comprehensive school, broke the mould for television drama and launched Redmond’s career as Britain’s best-known drama producer.
He launched his second coup four years later when he convinced Channel 4 that it needed an adult drama with an equally brave attitude towards social issues. Thus in 1982 Brookside, a twice-weekly soap opera set on a private housing estate in Liverpool, was born. Its willingness to tackle issues such as wife-beating and incest made other leading soaps look frivolous by comparison.
The series was axed in 2003 when ratings fell below one million, but at its peak it commanded the attention of eight million, making it Channel 4’s best ratings winner.
The programme, which included three armed sieges, one “body under the patio” murder and a notorious lesbian kiss, allowed Redmond to create Mersey Television — then the largest independent production company in Britain — with a £4 million investment from Channel 4.
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In 1995 he created Hollyoaks for Channel 4. Last year he wrote to Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, offering to buy Channel 4.
Redmond said yesterday that he would continue to be involved in creating television shows. “This is not the end of anything, but the beginning of a new chapter in the lives of Mersey, [my wife] Alexis and myself,” he said.