Edinburgh TV school drama will use '˜scripted reality'

Scotland is to get a new television drama series set in a fictional high school in Edinburgh.

Cast members including, right, Harmony Rose Bremner, daughter of actor Ewen

Filming has already started on location in the capital for the first series of Logan High.

Commissioned by the BBC, the show comes almost a decade after the corporation axed its last long-running school series, Grange Hill, which ran for 30 years.

Logan High will focus on “the challenges, friendships, fads and fashions experienced by teens on the cusp of adulthood”.

Sixty 10-minute episodes have been commissioned by CBBC, the children’s television strand of the BBC, from the London-based production company Chalkboard, which is setting up a Scottish subsidiary to make Logan High.

When it makes it debut early next year, it will deploy an “improv-drama” model, which will see actors improvising from scenario-based scripts.

Logan High is based on a Dutch “scripted reality” show, First Years, made for public broadcaster AVRO-TROS.

Its stars will include Harmony Rose Bremner, daughter of Trainspotting star Ewen Bremner, in her first major TV role.

Executive producer Mike Benson said: “CBBC has backed us on a bold and exciting concept. We’re confident that Logan High will live up to expectation, immersing its young viewers in great stories and characters in new and exciting ways.”

Amy Buscombe, senior drama producer at CBBC, said: “We’re delighted to be producing more drama in Scotland. The Logan High team have brought together a bunch of brilliantly talented young Scottish actors and we can’t wait to see what they get up to.”

Logan High has been commissioned months after BBC Three screened Clique, a six-part drama about two friends drawn into an elite group of “alpha girls” at university in Edinburgh. Logan High will also follow in the footsteps of Waterloo Road, a high school-set BBC drama, which was originally set and filmed in Rochdale, but relocated to Greenock.

Rosie Ellison, of the Film Edinburgh commission, said: “Logan High is a great production for the city, showcasing a variety of locations and employing local cast and crew.

“Logan High follows a strong tradition of popular children’s programmes filming in the Edinburgh area, including the likes of Teacup Travels, Dani’s House, Raven, Me Too!, Balamory and Hubbub.

“Kids’ TV shows hold a special place in viewers’ hearts that stays with them. That you still see children and their families posing for photographs at the Gardener’s Cottage in Princes Street Gardens, famed from Teacup Travels, is a testament to their longevity.

“They drive visits by children and their families, keen to walk in the footsteps of their childhood idols.”