| Genre: | Crime drama |
| Runtime: | 60 mins (w/advertisements) |
| Creator: | Tim Vaughan Roger Smith Jamie Foreman |
| Producer: | Rebecca Edwards |
| Executive Producer: | Michelle Buck Tim Vaughan |
| Starring: | Martin Kemp Jamie Foreman David Calder Simone Lahbib Camille Coduri |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Location: | London, England |
| Language: | English |
| Company: | LWT |
| Network: | ITV |
| Num Series: | 1 |
| Num Episodes: | 6 |
| List Episodes: |
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Family is an ITV crime drama series, first broadcast on 29 September 2003, starring Martin Kemp and Jamie Foreman as two gangster brothers operating in London's East End. Family ran for one series, comprising six episodes. A DVD of the complete series was released on 30 March 2009.
Family follows a family of London gangsters headed by Ted Cutler (David Calder). One of his sons, Joey (Martin Kemp), is happily married with two children and tries to keep 'business' separate from home life, while the other son, Dave (Jamie Foreman) is a loose cannon with a nasty temper who has just returned from America, where he fled following a family rift. Only Joey sees a way out by running a high class restaurant - but this venture is not without violence.[1]
Jamie Foreman devised and co-wrote the show alongside scriptwriters Tim Vaughan and Roger Smith. Nick Elliott, controller of ITV drama, said of the series;
"Jamie plays the loopy brother, while Martin is like Al Pacino's character in the Godfather, desperately wanting to be straight but going along with the dodgy stuff. There will also be this father figure. It's a contemporary London gangster show and it will have a lot of authenticity. There'll be a contrast between Martin living a normal suburban lifestyle, then going to meetings to discuss rubbing someone out and being involved in rackets and organised crime. He's got a wife and a daughter who takes cello lessons, who don't know about the other life he leads."
Elliott commissioned the six-part series alongside Granada South drama controller, Michele Buck.[2]
Family was well received by critics and media buyers, who welcomed it as part of a "quality-based offensive" in ITV's autumn schedule. But after a respectable start with 6.1 million viewers watching on 29 September, the programme lost nearly two million viewers, drawing only 4.3 million in the same slot four weeks later. Although there were only two more episodes to be aired, Nigel Pickard, Head of ITV's programming, ditched the show from its prime time slot and consigned it instead to a graveyard slot of 11:30pm on Wednesdays.[3] This meant that the episode previously scheduled for 27 October 2003 was replaced with a rerun of Airline.[4]