Our Friends in the North is a British television drama serial, produced by the BBC and originally broadcast in nine episodes on BBC Two in early 1996. Telling the story of four friends from the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in North East England over 31 years from 1964 to 1995, it also brought in real political and social events specific to Newcastle and Britain as a whole during the era portrayed, including general elections, police and local government corruption, the UK miners' strike and the Great Storm of 1987. Publicity material for the serial used the tagline "Three decades, four... friends and the world that shaped their lives". The serial is commonly regarded as one of the most successful BBC television dramas of the 1990s, described by The Daily Telegraph as "A production where all worked to serve a writer's vision. We are not likely to look upon its like again." In a poll of industry professionals conducted by the British Film Institute in 2000, it was 25th in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century.
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