High Hopes
High Hopes Cast 2006 - L-R: Charlie (Ben Evans), Hoffman (Steven Meo), Mam (Margaret John), Fagin (Robert Blythe) - Courtesey of BBC Wales (Picture: Neil Bennet)
High Hopes is a surreal comedy, set in the South Wales valleys. It follows the ups and downs of four people from the wrong side of the tracks as they form themselves into an unlikely but close-knit family group – Fagin, Mam, Hoffman and Charlie.
High Hopes was the longest running Welsh sitcom on television. Written by Boyd Clack and Kirsten Jones, it tells the story of Richard “Fagin” Hepplewhite (Robert Blythe) as an agoraphobic ex-criminal who launches an odd-job business in the Welsh valleys, after serving at Strangeways prison.
He lives with his Mam, and two teenage tearaway’s called Charlie and Hoffman (Ben Evans/Oliver Wood and Steven Meo). As his namesake does in the original Oliver Twist story, ‘Fagin’ takes the two lads under his wing and together they relentlessly forge new plans to make a pretty penny and cash-in at every opportunity.
High Hopes Cast 2007 - L-R: Charlie (Oliver Wood), Fagin (Robert Blythe), Mam (Margaret John), Hoffman (Steven Meo) - Courtesey of BBC Wales
High Hopes is set in the fictitious valleys town of Cwm Pen-ol (“Backside Valley”) and revolves around working-class folk who have turned to petty crime to survive.
Every week, they enter many scrapes, like stealing Tom Jones’ first dickie-bow to finding a famous Welsh painting called Dafydd Ar y Twmp. High Hopes draws its similarities from classic shows like “Only Fools and Horses” (director Gareth Gwenlan played his part in that shows history also), where Richard ‘Fagin’ Hepplewhite and his humble sidekicks go to every length to cheat the system and find their way out of the struggle that is indeed reality.
Trivia: The series’ theme tune is an instrumental version of the 1959 song High Hopes by Frank Sinatra on a harp.