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The
plot featured in the opening episodes of Dick Clement and Ian Le
Frenais' Auf Wiedersehen Pet which
returned to our screens on Sunday, 28 April, 2002.
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| Tim
Healy, who plays Dennis, films a scene by the Transporter Bridge. |
The
show was a huge hit in the 1980s when it aired on ITV and the final
episode of the show even ousted Coronation Street from its position
at the top of the TV charts.
It's
been 16 years since we last caught sight of the lads, working illegally
on a gangster's spanish villa.
Much
has changed in the intervening period as the boys gather in Middlesbrough
for the wake of their 'dead' comrade Oz.
And
the good news is Tim Healy (Dennis), Jimmy Nail (Oz), Timothy Spall
(Barry), Kevin Whately (Neville), Christopher Fairbank (Moxey) and
Pat Roach (Bomber) are all back on board, along with newcomer Noel
Clarke who plays Wyman (son of Wayne, who was played by Gary Holton,
who died from a drug overdose during filming of the second series).
Demolition
In
the opening scenes of the first episode it soon turns out that Oz,
played by Jimmy Nail, has brought the old gang together for a dubious
moneymaking scheme involving the demolition of the Transporter Bridge
to clear the land for redevelopment.
He
came up with the scheme while in prison alongside disgraced ex-MP
Jeffrey Grainger, played by Bill Nighy.
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| Look
North's Alan Powell makes a cameo appearance in the new series! |
Sadly,
the boys don't spend too long in the town as they're soon off to
Arizona for reasons that will unfold on screen.
The
plan to revive one of the UK's most successful comedy dramas was
made 18 months ago when the cast gathered at London's Mirabelle
restauraunt.
BBC
drama director Alan Yentob was keen to get executive producer Franc
Roddam to resurrect the programme.
A noted
documentary maker, Roddam had come up with the original idea after
noting that many of the friends he had grown up with on Teesside
had ended up working in Germany - an estimated 30,000 people!
The
rights to the series had come back to Roddam two year's previously
so he decided to write a sketch for the characters of Oz, Dennis
and Neville to be performed at a memorial benefit in Newcastle for
a friend of Jimmy Nail.
The
success of the play convinced Roddam and Yentob to plough ahead
with the project netting huge ratings for BBC One.
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