Byker Grove is a British teen drama and coming of age television series which aired between 1989 and 2006 as part of CBBC on BBC One.

The show is notable for depicting the first gay kiss on children’s television, as well as its breach of the fourth wall in the final series.

The show is set to be rebooted in 2024, produced by former cast members Ant & Dec (who played PJ & Duncan in the original programme).

In 1987, Wonfor approached soap writer Adele Rose and together they created a single pilot episode featuring children aged 8–11 at an out-of-school club that had been commissioned for ITV's Dramarama.

[citation needed] Shortly after the announcement Richard Deverell, head of CBBC, was interviewed on Newsround about the decision to axe Byker Grove.

The cast and crew from the first 10 years of the show held their first reunion on 19 May 2012 in the Quayside area of Newcastle upon Tyne and on a river boat cruise.

Byker Grove gave Academy Award-winning director Tom Hooper his first break into TV drama when he directed four episodes in 1997.

[8] The 2004 series saw the character of Bradley agonising over his sexuality and eventually coming out as gay to his girlfriend Sadie, after a romantic holiday together had failed to live up to their expectations.

The series frequently depicted life as unjust, with bad things happening to good people, such as Flora's death from a brain tumour, Greg's fall from the roof of the Grove which left him paralysed from the waist down, Jemma Dobson being electrocuted by a faulty electricity mains socket and youth leader Geoff Keegan's death in an accidental gas explosion after 11 years on the show.

These ranged from the comical to the tragic; characters who stole and joy-rode cars often died in them, starting with Gill, and ultimately Craig running over Ben Carter.

was blinded during an illicit and unsupervised paintballing session, in which he ignored warnings and removed his face guard, in a scene filmed on location at Aydon Castle near Corbridge.

The central storyline of the first three series was the character of London teenager Julie Warner (Lucy Walsh) struggling to fit in and adjust to life in working class Newcastle and her relationship with the rebellious Martin "Gill" Gillespie.

However numerous present and former Grove members buy enough time for the characters to re-write the ending so that the club will remain open forever, but ultimately fail to stop it being demolished.