JANE HALL

6 x 60' drama series for ITV1
by Sally Wainwright for RED Production Company

Jane Hall - shy, hapless and chronically unemployed - has spent so much time convinced she's an idiot that she's got no idea how loveable, gorgeous and funny she actually is. So when, after a massive row with her parents, she finally decides to move away from home, it's a radical life-change: she heads straight for the bright lights of the big smoke - London. The last place she expects to find sex, fun, and adventure is in driving a bright red London bus. But she does.

'Jane Hall' is a funny, original and tantalisingly different drama. Jane's brand-new life leads us into two distinctive and colourful worlds - Arden Gardens (Jane's new home in the arsehole of London, aka Hounslow), and the bus garage (Jane's new work place) - where the lives and loves of a very mixed group of memorable characters are played out.

Initially torn between the novelty of driving a bus and the security of a career in the civil service, Jane soon finds there's no shortage of drama at the garage. Fellow female driver - the flamboyant, adulterous Gillian - reluctantly befriends her after Jane discovers Gillian juggling her shifts with lovers Steve, Les and husband Dave. Barry - a mysteriously sinister driver - threatens Jane and tries to make her life a misery. While Jane's on the job, buses get stolen or hijacked or backed into garden walls. Gangsters, convicts and shop window mannequins jostle for space on her bus. If something bad, annoying, dangerous or embarrassing can happen to a bus driver, it will happen to Jane, as her job takes her on a crazy odyssey through London.

And things don't exactly go any more smoothly back at Arden Gardens. Jane unwittingly becomes entangled in a 'love triangle' with two of her housemates. There's gorgeous, charming Richard, who, with his smart suits and responsible job, is every mother's dream son-in-law. And quiet, sardonic, Gauloise-smoking Robert - an intellectual oddball whose sex appeal takes Jane by surprise. A chronic sufferer of foot-in-mouth disease, Jane veers between ecstasy and heartbreak as the complications of her love life spiral out of control.

Throughout the series, Jane's altar ego - 'Fantasy Jane' - is an active and articulate presence, popping in and out of Jane's life to pass comment, or - in a sticky situation - acting out one of Jane's fantasy problem-solving scenarios.

But as Jane's confidence develops as a bus driver, she becomes more confident in her relationships - not only with the two potential men in her life, but also with her workmates, and her parents. Bus driving teaches Jane how to deal with a complex and difficult world. It teaches Jane to stand on her own two feet (until the next time she trips over). Most of all, it's a marvellous journey along the bus route of life - and Jane's loving every minute.