Crossroads 

The four or five times a week adventures of a motel owner, son, daughter and her staff. Drama was never far away from the ringing of the reception bell.

Creators:

Hazel Adair, Peter Ling

Stars:

Noele Gordon, Susan Hanson, Ronald Allen

Cast

Series cast summary:
Noele Gordon	...	Meg Mortimer / ... 227 episodes, 1964-1981
Susan Hanson	...	Diane Parker / ... 207 episodes, 1966-1985
Ronald Allen	...	David Hunter 197 episodes, 1972-1985
Paul Henry	...	Benny / ... 172 episodes, 1976-1987
Roger Tonge	...	Sandy Richardson 156 episodes, 1964-1980
Jane Rossington	...	Jill Harvey / ... 129 episodes, 1964-1988
Sally Adcock	...	Jane Smith 119 episodes, 1973-1978
Kathy Staff	...	Doris Luke 107 episodes, 1978-1982

Storyline

The four or five times a week adventures of a motel owner, son, daughter and her staff. Drama was never far away from the ringing of the reception bell.

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Plot Keywords:

motel | midlands | partially lost tv series | sergeant | wobbly sets | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Did You Know?

Trivia

The cast were largely forbidden to be seen smoking on-screen until the mid-'70s.

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Goofs

The March 1975 civil ceremony wedding of a fairly anonymous motel owner to a businessman - Meg Richardson and Hugh Mortimer - at Birmingham Register Office sees the city centre thronged with well-wishers; similarly the later affirmation/blessing at Birmingham Cathedral has a packed congregation, outside police supervision and reporters. Whilst in reality this reflects the interest of the general public in the show and its production, in narrative terms it is completely nonsensical.

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Connections

Referenced in Live from the Lighthouse (1998)

User Reviews

A Soap made for fans not TV critics

To sum up Crossroads is a task which is practically impossible. The wobbly set legend is a strange one, we know when the show started it was filmed in a old cinema, so the sets were of a stage-production quality, but when Crossroads moved into ATV Centre (1970) those wobbles became no worse than any other TV show. (In fact I noticed a wobble in one of the sets on Coronation St a few months ago)

Was the 'so bad, its good' true? Well no, the cast and crew put in 110% into the programme, ATV were not exactly generous with cash, so maybe it did look cheap, however unless other soaps they were doing Crossroads five times a week on less cash than the rest so the fact they made anything at least half decent should be praised not knocked.

The show was a ground-breaker, but people prefer to knock it and insult its 17 million fans in the process. Crossroads made television history time and time again, yet how many people know of any of these feats?

Maybe the legend of the wobbles and the poor standards have actually stood the show well as even nearly 20 years after it disappeared everyone still knows of Crossroads.

Today compared with the poor Carlton version, the original Crossroads now stands out as a classic. The show boasted a host of stars, David Jason, Bob Monkhouse, Max Wall, Elaine Paige, Ken Dodd, Sue Nicholls and Johnny Briggs all stayed within the motel to name only a few.

The story lines at the time were said to be sometimes far fetched, but nothing compared to some that appeared later in Brookside or Coronation Street. Crossroads set the trend for real-life issue based plots, it also aimed to entertain. It was a family soap, something that is rare on television today. It wasn't afraid to be different, and it never gave in to the TV Critics, as Lord Lew Grade said, he made the show for the fans, not for the ATV cash generator or critics. Something ITV could learn from today. It might have been cheap but it was popular, and thats something many expensive shows have failed to be!

Details

Official Sites:

Official fan club

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

2 November 1964 (UK)

Also Known As:

Crossroads

Filming Locations:

Ramada Hotel, Penns Lane, Walmley, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Associated Television (ATV), Central Independent Television

Technical Specs

Runtime:

30 min (4510 episodes)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1