The Year In Drama: August 2002

This month, Faye Ripley, Lindsey Coulson and Claire Rushbrook joined forces for The Stretford Wives, a darkly comic tale about the lives, loves and scams of three sisters in Stretford, Manchester. In another one-off drama, Ella and the Mothers, Michelle Collins and Juliet Aubrey played two women caught up in the middle of a fertility clinic blunder, who both believed five year old Ella to be their own daughter.

Another harrowing story was told in Little Angels, which showed the full horror of heroin addiction, through a mix of documentary interviews and improvised dramatisations.

Elsewhere, the six-part drama Any Time Now, starring Susan Lynch, Zara Turner and Angeline Ball, focused on the trials in life and love experienced by three close friends. And after six months, the first series of 24 finally reached its conclusion. To mark the occasion, BBC CHOICE viewers were treated to two special programmes, 24 Heaven and 24: The Postmortem, while BBCi viewers joined in a live chat with Dennis Haysbert, aka Senator Palmer.