How Heartbreak High kicked off

In 1987 Richard Barrett, a Sydney high school teacher, wrote his first play. It was called 'The Heartbreak Kid', and it was about Christina and Nick, two Australians with a Greek background who fall in love. They've got one problem: Christina is a high school teacher and Nick is one of her students. She is also engaged to Dimitri, a friend of her family.

When Barrett's play was being shown in fringe theatre in Sydney it was seen by Ben Gannon who approached Richard Barratt and suggested turning it into a movie. The movie was directed and co-written by Michael Jenkins, and released in 1993. It was a smash hit and became the second most succesful Australian movie of that year.

Actually when Ben Gannon saw The Heartbreak Kid, he thought it was "very funny, charming and sexy" and that was why he wanted to make it into a movie. But once he looked at the script he realized it could become so much more! It seemed to be a really realistic picture of Australia, because it portrayed all the different ethnic backgrounds of the people that actually make up Australia, whereas other television programs concentrate mostly on the Anglo characters: Australians whose families originally came from northern Europe.

The producers realised they could take the realistic setting of the film, a high school in a multi-cultural inner city suburb, and create a new TV series that would reflect the lives of ordinary Australian teenagers. And so the hugely successful Heartbreak High television series was born.

The director and producer of the series is Ben Gannon, who has a long list of television and film credits to his name. Along with him, Michael Jenkins was responsible for Heartbreak High becoming a successful television series as well. Todd Hunter was the man who composed the show's theme as well as many of the other songs heard throughout the entire seven series of Heartbreak High, including several of Jodie's songs.