River City bows out
Shieldinch Youth: NCL students found work on River City
(From L;R: Ty McPhee, Sean Connor, Chloe Hodgson and Aisha Toussaints)
After 20 years on screens the iconic BBC Scotland's hit soap River City is coming to a close tonight.
The show is known to be a gateway to the industry for many working-class actors or production crew – many of New College Lanarkshire’s graduates have gone on to appear in the show or work behind the camera.
Kevin Walls (pictured below) a former NCL student turned lecturer, knows firsthand what River City offered those trying to break in – as he wrote three episodes for the show. He said: "I loved the entire process. It was fantastic. It's so collaborative because you've got script editors, producers, execs, you've got all the crew, the cast, everyone's kind of working together, making this thing.
But Kevin’s perspective on the show's closure is sobering. "It's going to have a real impact on entry-level roles," he says. "It's going to have an impact on people having any sort of sustained career at the moment."
The issue cuts deeper than lost jobs. "So many actors that are on River City are from working-class backgrounds," Walls explains, "and it did give them a fairly steady income that not a lot of actors get. We need to make this an achievable career for everybody. Because we should be able to tell our stories and not have to worry about going homeless because of it."
Kevin is not the only person to work on the show, many NCL students also appeared on the show. The longest running River City star to come out of NCL is Calum Adams (played by Ty McPhee) who is Kelly-Marie’s troublemaking son.
Jules Belmont (Aisha Toussaints) made an impact during her time in the show, clashing with local gangster Lenny Murdoch before going on to land a role as the latest Raven; a career leap that epitomises River City's launchpad effect.
Former NCL student Sean Connor burst into Shieldinch as Dylan Christie in handcuffs, perhaps not the best entrance to make when coming home to see his mum – not the homecoming anyone hopes for.
Another NCL alum that was in the show is Chloe Hodgson who played iconic Rosin McIntyre’s granddaughter Jodie, she went on to work in the Oyster Café and has fallen foul of Calum’s pranks.
The show's latest addition, Alice Linder (Jasmine Main), arrived as Shellsuit Bob's new girlfriend, a yoga instructor but had bullied Amber Murdoch years before.
The BBC said that in cancelling River City it reflected a significant change in audience behaviour away from long-running series and towards shorter runs and shows with more international appeal.