New School Rules

Jo Joyner and Liz White tell us why their C4 drama really is an education…

- Victoria Wilson

TV Times is back at school! No, we’re not here to retake our GCSEs, we are, in fact, at the fictional Ackley Bridge College in Halifax, the setting for C4’s new six-part, primetime drama Ackley Bridge.

While that distinctive smell and the narrow corridors take us right back to our own childhood, we soon realise that this is a school with a difference.

Ackley Bridge centres on a Yorkshire mill town where Asian and white communities have been largely segregated. As the series begins, it’s the first day of term for two formerly isolated schools that have now been merged into an ‘integrated’ academy.

Spearheading the academy is head teacher Mandy Carter, played by former EastEnders star Jo Joyner, who’s married to PE teacher Steve Bell (fellow ex-EastEnder Paul Nicholls).

The drama also stars Liz White (Life on Mars) as teacher Emma Keane, Casualty’s Sunetra Sarker as dinner lady Kaneez Paracha, and Citizen Khan’s Adil Ray as the academy’s sponsor, Sadiq Nawaz.

But as everyone tries to work together to make the place a success, it looks like it might already be doomed to fail, as stars Jo and Liz reveal…

What can you tell us about your characters?