High Hopes is a sitcom created by Boyd Clack, written by Clack and Kirsten Jones. Produced and directed by Gareth Gwenlan for BBC Wales, ""High Hopes"" is set in a fictional area of the South Wales Valleys called Cwm-Pen-Ôl. It stars Margaret John as widow Elsie Hepplewhite, Robert Blythe as her son Richard Hepplewhite, Steven Meo as Hoffman and Oliver Wood as Charlie. It revolves around Elsie's son Richard and his dodgy business ventures, assisted by the two boys, who attempted to rob the Hepplewhites' house in the first episode. The pilot was shown on BBC all over the UK in 1999, with slight differences to future cast and plot. The series started in 2002, and in March 2007, filming began on its fifth series. The sixth and final series, consisting of six episodes, was first shown on BBC1 Wales weekly from Tuesday, 11 November 2008. But, before it aired a report in the South Wales Echo, titled 'Welsh sitcom set to be axed', confirmed that: A three-part "Best Bits" special was shown on BBC1 Wales, starting 20 September; the third episode was on Sunday, 4 October 2009. In December 2014 it was announced a one-off special would be screened in March 2015 as a part of the BBC Wales real season of programmes
Series overview
Characters
Richard (Fagin) Hepplewhite
Played by: Robert Blythe
Richard Hepplewhite is a wannabe entrepreneur who lives with his mother in the Welsh valleys. Fresh from serving time for second-degree murder at Strangeways Prison, he is claustrophobic and agoraphobic, running his business empire from his desk at the house. He takes the boys in during the first episode. In one episode, he is briefly cured of his agoraphobia after falling over, but he still lives in fear of being "sucked off by the sky".
Elsie "Mam" Hepplewhite
Played by: Margaret John
Elsie is Fagin's mother whose husband was captured by Japan in World War II as a prisoner of war. He died as a POW in Japan during World War 2 when Fagin was a young boy. So, she shares a dislike for the Japanese with Richard, she because of her husband's death, he because of their technological advances. Her grandfather died after swallowing a silver threepence that was in his Christmas pudding, not before running down the road for one and a half miles
Dwayne Hoffman
Played by: Steven Meo
Hoffman is a teenage petty criminal whose best friend is Charlie. He and Charlie are apprentices to Fagin's business. Hoffman enters many scrapes, like stealing an iconic Welsh painting "Dafydd ar y Twmp", and trying to escape the clutches of a randy policewoman!
Charlie is the second teenager in the household. He seems not to be brighter than Hoffman, and once made a collage of Charlotte Church with no clothes on, and also entering a romance with a Victor.
Other characters
Other characters include Mrs. Coles, the local shopkeeper, PC Claude Cox, a friend of the family, with a fondness for cake, plastic sex dolls and pornographic films. Also present is show co-writer Boyd Clack who plays Sergeant Ball.
Pilot and series comparison
The pilot and the series in general can be compared:
In the pilot, the boys knew Fagin already, but in the series, Fagin met them and their knowledge of each other developed very quickly, although he knew them it was not as if he had known them for long.
The whole of the UK saw the pilot, whereas the series was originally shown only in Wales, but was repeated on BBC2 Wales in 2006, which was also available to BSkyB viewers outside Wales as well.
Different actors played Hoffman, Charlie and PC Claude Cox.
The series' theme tune is an instrumental version of the 1959 song "High Hopes" played on a Welsh harp by Dai Brown. The backdrop village seen on the opening and closing credits is Fochriw.
