Family Affairs - Stanley Street

Stanley Street

In 2000 coinciding with the introduction of the Warrington family, the geographic focus of the series was redefined as being on Stanley Street in the fictitious W15 borough of West London. Previously the specific location of Charnham had never been explicitly stated; it was known to be close to a river, and characters sometimes travelled to Maidenhead. With the late-1998 infusion of new characters, it was established Dusty and her children lived over their minimarket and that in the next door flat were students Declan, Gabby and Clive. Now, we would see action regularly extend to the shop's street exterior and the surrounding buildings, and this location was revealed to be the bustling Stanley Street with its row of narrow shopfronts and terrace houses. Just as Roy was establishing his new internet café business next door to Yasmin's mini supermarket the Warringtons moved in across the street. Roy came to live in the street as well, and when Pete sold The Lock to buy old-style pub The Black Swan this too was revealed to be on the same short street.

In quick succession, any regular characters not already living there soon moved into Stanley Street, while, Sadie's home was inexplicably shifted there without her having to move house. After this, the various locations seen earlier in the series - such as The Lock and the marina - would not be seen again. Alongside Yasmin's minimarket and the newly opened internet café, The Black Swan would become one of the show's primary meeting places: despite the fact that Pete was openly hated by most of the show's characters, they still all followed him to become regulars at his new pub. From now on, most outdoor taping was on the outdoor Stanley Street set, reducing the number of time-consuming location shoots while confining much of the action to the one street.

Many storylines revolved around Pete Callan and his various crimes, schemes, and love affairs. Meanwhile, the large group of younger characters in the series went through a series of romances and break-ups. The newly introduced Warrington family became key figures in the show's on-going storylines. Nikki Warrington (Rebecca Blake) endured marriage problems and problems with her large blended family which also consisted of her doctor husband Andrew (Simon Cook), his children Luke (Royce Cronin) and Sara (Beth Cordingly), and Nikki's children Becky (Chandra Reugg) and Darren (Joe Fox, later Ike Hamilton) from her previous marriage to Adrian Scott (Ariyon Bakare), who was at the time serving a prison sentence.

Nikki became embroiled in scandal when she embarked upon an affair with her stepson Luke. This major storyline was played alongside that of Pete Callan's latest misdemeanour - framing new wife Siobhan for the murder of Dave's son Josh. Siobhan had struck a blow to a suspected burglar in the darkened kitchen upstairs at the pub, where she lived with Pete, before realising the "burglar" was merely barman Josh Matthews.

Siobhan falsely believed that her blow to Josh had killed him, when it merely knocked him unconscious. Pete, who was on the scene in seconds and who had a deep-seated enmity with Josh and Josh's father Dave, secretly delivered the deadly blow after Siobhan left the room in terror. Siobhan was quickly arrested and sent to prison.