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‘Audiences told us we didn’t show enough teacher sex’: how we made Waterloo Road

Monday 23rd March 2026

‘In series one, it was bullying, drugs and alcohol. Twenty years on, it’s vapes, cyber-bullying and bloody energy drinks’

I was working on women’s prison drama Bad Girls when the idea for Waterloo Road came up. Bad Girls creators Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus had a fiery belief in social justice and did rigorous research. Those are often the foundations of successful serial drama. Ann had once taught in a Glasgow comprehensive and was passionate about education: she believed we write off young people too readily. That became the basis of Waterloo Road.