Shameless

Fopii, Pictures:Channel 4

Channel 4

Shameless is a BAFTA award-winning British comedy drama television series set in the fictional Chatsworth council Estate, Manchester, England.

 

The opening credits have always featured a monologue from the central character of the series, Frank Gallagher. The series charts the lives of the dysfunctional Gallagher family, comprising Frank and his six children, widening the scope to other occupants of the estate as the series progresses. Central characters in the Gallagher family include eldest daughter Fiona , eldest son Lip (Phillip) , plus younger children Ian, Carl, Debbie and Liam who grow up as the series continues.

Other characters featured in earlier series include Fiona's boyfriend Steve, a middle-class car thief ; Kev and Veronica , the Gallaghers' neighbours; Kash, the owner of the local shop, and his wife Yvonne; agoraphobic Sheila  and her daughter Karen; Lip's girlfriend Mandy Maguire; the policemen Tony and Stan, along with various regular background characters. The cast was expanded for the series 2, with Carol and Marty, Veronica's mother and brother, becoming regular characters after guest roles in the first series. In series 3, Mandy's family, led by her drug-dealing parents Mimi Maguire and Paddy Maguire, became key characters. In series 4 we also meet three of the Maguire parents' sons: Shane Maguire, who is determined to show his parents and the estate that he is a hard man and a good worker, and Mickey Maguire, who is gay and similarly determined to prove himself. We also meet Jamie Maguire, who has been in prison for 10 years for murder. In the last episode of series 6, the show killed off one of its main characters Mandy Maguire. The death was the climax in a storyline which appeared to show the repercussions of heroin addiction come back to haunt her drug dealing parents.

The Gallagher family reside at 2 Windsor Gardens on the fictional Chatsworth Estate, a council estate in Stretford, Greater Manchester. Originally the show was filmed on location on a council estate in West Gorton and in the Pie Factory Studios in Salford. From series 5 onwards the show has been filmed from a purpose built set on the Roundthorn Industrial Estate in South Manchester on the site of an old Kodak warehouse, and around Wythenshawe and Sale, Manchester