The beloved BBC drama Ballykissangel will be able to be watched on UK TV for the first time in nearly 10 years, it has been announced.
Running for six series between 1996 and 2001, Ballykissangel revolved around Father Peter Clifford, a Roman Catholic priest from Manchester who is transferred to the tiny Irish village of the title. The show turned actor Stephen Tompkinson into a household name, along with Dervla Kirwan, who portrayed Father Clifford’s love interest Assumpta.
Fans old and new will be able to watch the show on television for the first time in a decade next month, as it will be broadcast daily on the Freeview channel Great TV.
Ballykissangel was a Nineties phenomenon, and a show that could best be described as comfort viewing – particularly for its cosy Sunday night timeslot in the schedules. It also garnered huge press attention due the off-screen romance between Tompkinson and Kirwan.
“The machine around the show turned our relationship into a fairy tale for the media,” Kirwan said in 2001. “If I was then the woman I am now, I would have put a stop to it, but I was a 23-year-old girl.”
Ratings took a dive once Tompkinson and Kirwan both decided to leave the programme after its third series. A report in The Independent in 1998 quoted BBC sources as saying they were not worried about the stars’ departures, noting that they had deliberately “evolve[d the show] into much more of an ensemble piece” in the run-up to their exits.
Despite that, the show was dealt another blow when actor Tony Doyle, who played entrepreneur Brian Quigley, died unexpectedly in 2001 at the age of 64. It meant that the writers had to scramble to write out the character off-screen – and via a fake suicide that meant he could flee to Brazil.
Ratings took a further hit when Ballykissangel went up against the ITV drama Heartbeat on Sunday nights, and the BBC ended up axing the series just three episodes into what would be its final run.
It also meant Ballykissangel fans who jumped ship after series three may have missed the arrival of a young drifter played by a pre-fame Colin Farrell, in one of his very first acting jobs. The future star once called the gig “one of the f*****g greatest things that ever happened to me”.
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Ballykissangel will be broadcast on Great TV from Monday 2 February at 3pm, with subsequent episodes airing every weekday.
