Over the years, oodles of kids (and perhaps as many hungover adults) have enjoyed kids programming on ITV, including gems like TISWAS and Ant and Dec’s seminal SMTV Live. We’ve chosen a couple of excellent examples of ITV Kids’ drama which also served as early testing grounds for a couple of highly acclaimed North West writers. Blackbird Singin’ in the Dead of Night (Granada tx 13.6.88) was written by Paul Abbott (now Shameless) for the influential Dramarama series of children’s drama whilst Russell T. Davies (currently of Dr. Who) won a Children’s TV BAFTA for this 1995 episode of The Ward (formerly Children’s Ward) a long-running kids’ soap set in a hospital (Granada).