BBC Drama filmed at Hopwood Hall

The crew at Hopwood Hall College

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On Sunday 9 October Hopwood Hall College opened its doors to a BBC film crew as it was used as a location for new prime-time drama, Waterloo Road, currently being filmed in the Rochdale area. The BBC1 drama stars well known television actors Jason Merrells (Cutting It) and Angela Griffin (Cutting It/Holby City/Coronation Street), Denise Welch (A Thousand feet Under the Sky/Coronation Street) RSC actor Jamie Glover, Camilla Power and Jason Doone alongside East Enders star, and Strictly Come Dancing Champion, Jill Halfpenny. 

The drama centres around a failing school that turns itself around to be a big success due to the commitment and dedication of a new Headmaster and his excellent team of staff. Hopwood’s staff and students, as well as other people from the Middleton area were able to take part in the filming as extras when the upper conference room in the brand new Henry West building was turned into a visiting room of a youth detention centre. The make-up department got their hands on some of the young lads and applied hand painted tattoos to give them more of a street edge - thankfully for their mums they were not permanent! 

The college also helped supply the props department with a collection of posters and student’s work to display on the walls of the film set at Hill Top School on Kirkholt estate.

The scenes filmed at the college will appear in episode four of eight and will be screened on BBC1 in the New Year. 

Chris Monaghan who studies Advanced Business and AS Level English at Hopwood along with his friend Sam Taylor who studies a BTEC National Diploma in IT were extras for the day and said: "we have really enjoyed the day and liked having the tattoos painted on us. It was good to see what goes into making a TV production, it takes so long to do just one scene. We can’t wait to see ourselves on the TV."