''Children's Hospital'' is a British television

fly-on-the-wall Fly on the wall is a style of documentary-making used in film and television production. The name derived from the idea that events are seen candidly, as a fly on a wall might see them. In the purest form of fly-on-the-wall documentary-making, ...

documentary series based at the

Sheffield Children's Hospital The Sheffield Children's Hospital is a healthcare facility for children in Broomhill, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. It is managed by the Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust. History The hospital first opened on 15 November 1876 ...

Birmingham Children's Hospital Birmingham Children's Hospital is a specialist children's hospital located in Birmingham, England. The hospital provides a range of specialist services and operates the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) for the city. The servi ...

, and

Alder Hey Children's Hospital Alder Hey Children's Hospital is a children's hospital and NHS foundation trust in West Derby, Liverpool, England. It is one of the largest children's hospitals in the United Kingdom, and one of several specialist hospitals within the Liverpool ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

. It was broadcast on BBC One between October 1993 and February 2003.

Production

According to scholar Annette Hill, the series had "all the hallmarks of a

docu-soap Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...

", saying its "personal, melodramatic stories appeal to viewers, with more than 8 million tuning into the first series, despite widespread criticism from the press." Peter Lee-Wright observes that the series marked a transition in fly-on-the-wall documentaries by shifting the emphasis from the practical considerations onto the "human dramas being played out ... apturingthe pain of the children ... and their parents' rollercoaster rides."

Music

The theme music was composed by

Debbie Wiseman Debbie Wiseman, OBE (born 10 May 1963) is a British composer for film and television, known also as a conductor and a radio and television presenter. Biography Wiseman was born in London. She studied at Trinity College of Music Junior Depart ...

. The music was released as a CD single in 1997, containing full orchestral and piano versions of the theme, alongside the shorter versions used for the opening and closing sequences. The orchestral version was also released on the compilation album ''

World of Sound In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

''. A new solo piano performance, titled "Ray of Sunshine", of the theme was included on the 2011 album ''Wiseman: Piano Stories''.Debbie Wiseman: ''Piano Stories'', 2011, Warner Classics

Transmissions

Series

Specials

References