Details

Fans of Shameless, the critically acclaimed, offbeat drama from award-winning writer Paul Abbott (Clocking Off, Touching Evil, Linda Green, State of Play), can now re-live the hilarity of the first series with its release on Double DVD - out to buy on 27th December 2004 from Channel 4 Video. The seven one-hour episodes chapter the rollercoaster lives of the Mancunian Gallaghers, as they experience life and love on the edge.

An interview with Paul Abbott, in which he offers insight into the idea behind the drama, its development and ultimate realisation, provides an absorbing extra on the DVD. Having grown up in Manchester, it's a drama written from the heart and Abbott outlines his affinity with the characters, their language, humour and choices. Also as a DVD extra, madcap mini-Gallaghers Debbie and Carl present viewers with an introduction to the cast members, as they run riot on the set with their mini DV Cam.

Head of the Gallagher family in name only, is Dad Frank (David Threlfall, Sex, Chips & Rock 'n' Roll, Nightingales, Blue Orange) - feckless, colourful, self-pitying, comic, selfish, and an unemployed, alcoholic bully - a model father. The Gallagher kids are being raised by their 20-year-old big sister Fiona (Anne-Marie Duff, Dr Zhivago, Sinners, Charles II) since Mum went AWOL and Dad hit the bottle. Lip, 16 - good looking, street-wise, gobby lad around town on the verge of (finally) losing his virginity; and Ian, 15 - actively gay, who keeps his private life very private, played by newcomers Jody Latham and Gerard Kearns. Siblings Debbie (Rebecca Ryan) and Carl (Luke/Elliot Tittensor) plus baby Liam round off the highly un-orthodox yet extremely tightly knit family.

Fiona can't believe that anyone would want her enough to take on the entire Gallagher package until would-be boyfriend Steve turns-up (James McAvoy, White Teeth, State Of Play, Bright Young Things) - a wheeler dealer - in the most literal sense...

Other colourful characters include the Gallaghers' next-door neighbours, Veronica and Kev (Maxine Peake, Dinner Ladies, Early Doors and Dean Lennox Kelly, Tipping the Velvet, Mike Bassett: England Manager). On the romance front there is Frank's valium-fuelled agoraphobic lover Sheila (Maggie O'Neill, Peak Practice, Births, Marriages and Deaths) and Ian's Muslim, wife-cheating, secret lover Kash (Chris Bisson, Coronation Street, East Is East) who runs the local mini-mart.

Charting the wickedly unpredictable chapters of family life, Shameless tells the every day story of life with the Gallaghers. From episode one, Shameless throws up a world of sexual adventures, triumphs, love, scams and a fair bit of crime on the Manchester housing estate - where wheel-less cars are the norm and the moving ones are stolen.