Many Brookie fans will remember them
Brookside’s Jamie and Tracy star in a spin off series (Image: Mirrorpix)
Legendary Liverpool soap Brookside is set to make a special return to our screen later this year over 20 years after its final episode aired. Affectionately known as Brookie, the hit Channel 4 soap ran from 1982 to 2003 and will make a comeback as part of a crossover episode with its successor Hollyoaks to celebrate the latter’s 30th anniversary.
The episode, due to air in October, will honour Brookside and its Huyton-born creator Sir Phil Redmond. The crossover episode will see the return of iconic Brookside characters to mark the milestone and will look at where they are now.
But if you’re a hardcore Brookside fan, you’ll no doubt remember the popular soap birthed two spin-off shows. Known at the time as “soap bubbles,” they saw a number of characters leave the Close, the Liverpool ECHO previously reported.
READ MORE: Where Brookside’s The Corkhills are now as iconic soap to make special returnREAD MORE: Brookside to return as filming to start in Liverpool within weeks
In the late 1980s, it was sweethearts Damon Grant and Debbie McGrath, played by Simon O’Brien and Gillian Kearney, who helped Channel 4 make history by starring in Britain’s first mini-series spin-off from a soap opera. In November 1987, the three-part series, called Damon and Debbie, hit our screens for the first time.
The spin-off, written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, followed the sweethearts leaving Brookside and deciding to elope, heading to York for a better life. Last year, the episodes aired on STV Player, which had bought Brookside back to our screens the year before.
Simon O’Brien and Gillan Kearney, seen here in their spin off series from Brookside. November 1987(Image: Liverpool ECHO/Channel 4)
In the show, the couple settled in York, with Debbie visiting an open day at the university and Damon finding work at a burger joint called Dick Turpin’s. But things didn’t go smoothly – Debbie didn’t tell Damon about her diabetes and when the barge they were staying on went missing, she was left panicked about her supply of insulin.
Like Shakespeare’s lovers, their story had an unhappy ending. After a mock marriage in a hotel room, Damon is stabbed by an unknown assailant on the streets of York and dies in Debbie’s arms.
But Damon and Debbie weren’t the only Brookie couple to get their own spin-off. The following year in 1988, Tracy Corkhill and Jamie Henderson, played by Justine Kerrigan and the late Sean McKee, also starred in their own ‘soap bubble.’
Brookside stars Simon O’Brien and Gillian Kearney. October 1987(Image: Mirrorpix)
In November 1987, the Liverpool ECHO reported: “Brookside’s Tracy Corkhill is to star in her own TV series. The Close’s trendy teenager will head for London with her boyfriend Jamie in the latest spin-off series from the Channel 4 soap opera.
“After the success of Damon and Debbie, which ended this week with Damon Grant’s death, Mersey Television chiefs are keen to launch another of their soap bubbles. Justine Kerrigan and Sean McKee, who play the young couple, will start work in January on the two-part series to be screened in March.”
The mini series, later named South, was first screened to schools on March 14 and March 21 as part of an educatory series. Later airing on Channel 4, it followed the unemployed couple who moved to London after Jamie’s cousin tells them there are lots of jobs down there.
Sean McKee stars as Jamie Henderson and Justine Kerrigan stars as Tracy Corkhill in a Brookside spin-off, 1988
When they arrive, they find she has got off with the rent and they end up staying with the housemates she had been living with. Tracy gets friendly with a kissogram girl and gets on the club circuit, but Jamie has a hard time looking for jobs on building sites and finds London is not all it’s cracked up to be.
The show tackles themes of unemployment and harsh living conditions in London, which sees the pair decide to head back to Liverpool. But when they board the train, Tracy changes her mind and stays.
Similarly to Damon and Debbie, South was created by Phil Redmond and written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce. These images, courtesy of our archives, Mirrorpix, show Justine Kerrigan and Sean McKee on a train and at a platform at London Euston train station in February 1988 after shooting South.
Brookside’s Jamie and Tracy star in a spin off series as two unemployed youngsters looking for work and adventure in London. February 1988(Image: Mirrorpix)
But Brookside fans will also remember singer Morrisey made a famous cameo in the spin-off. In 2019, the Daily Star reported: “He was originally supposed to star in Brookside as a prospective house buyer in the area, but after that was scrapped he had a brief cameo in the spin-off Brookside South in 1988, where he met Tracy Corkhill (Justine Kerrigan) in a hospital waiting room.
After Tracy says: “I know who you are,” Moz flatly replies with “so do I.”
Earlier this year, Brookside returned to screens on the free streaming service STV Player. But many Brookie fans will still remember these spin-off soap bubbles and the characters who starred in them.