Teenage runaway girls

[catsmeat]

Can anyone help me out on the title of this one please?



Two teenage girls, both runaways, meet up. Older one, who's much more streetwise, is running from a generally bad home life - poor, father drinks a lot. Other is running from her affluent and comfortable home, and a father who routinely sexually abuses her. ISTR scenes on the London underground and streetwise one knowing where to hide from transport police.



They both end up in some kind of hostel for runaways, and I think that younger one attempts to get her father prosecuted, but fails. I have vague recollections of the father being played by someone very well known, and usually in much nicer parts - in this he was decidedly creepy. May have been a doctor or a lawyer or some eminently respectable professional.



Older one manages to get herself into art college of some description. Younger one ends up on the streets selling herself. She attempts suicide by stepping out in front of a lorry, but is injured and ends up in hospital. Last scenes are of her in a hospital bed with a radio playing. The DJ is talking to a girl requesting a record for her friend, with whom she's lost touch and whose birthday it is - the girl in hospital.



Soundtrack included something by U2?



Thanks!

[LocalHero]

This all sounds so familiar that I'm kicking myself that I can't remember what it is.



The one that immediately sprung to mind is Poliakoff's Runners, but I think it's too early and I don't remember the abuse element to it.



I also had an immediate impression of having seen Charles Dance in something like this but can't see anything that looks likely in any of his filmographies.



I have the impression that what you're looking for was a mini-series type thing on ITV shown over a couple of nights, but at the moment can't get any closer to it than that.



Will stop thinking about it and hope that means I remember!

[BristolUK]

I immediately thought that one too....althugh all I could remember was it was Bill Oddies's daughter. I didn't recall the name.

[D Cairns]

I wondered if this might be Safe, the Antonia Bird TV movie, which has homelessness and a sexually abusive stepfather, but I don't remember a lot of the other elements.

[LocalHero]

I'm pretty sure it's not Safe as it's main focus wasn't only on the girl.



I've still got niggles going on in the back of my brain about it but just can't quite get hold of anything.

[Harleybloke]

name='BristolUK']I immediately thought that one too....althugh all I could remember was it was Bill Oddies's daughter. I didn't recall the name.

Kate Hardie was in 'Runners', that was 1983.....................

[billy farmer]

i remember watching this itv drama and i am sure it wasn't a mini-series and that it was shown on just one night. i remember one girl running away from home after telling her mother about the abuse from her father and she didn't believe her and i remember a scene where the girl who left home to get away from her abusive father was watching tv with some friends and her father knocked on the door of the house the programme they were watching on tv was jack the ripper (1988) starring michael caine. i am sure this itv drama was shown about 1989 not long after jack the ripper had been broadcast on itv.

[LocalHero]

I think I found it!!



It's called 'Somewhere to Run' from 1989 - IMDB info here.



Billy Farmer set me on the right track with the Jack the Ripper reference. I'd been looking at the listings for various UK production companies (eg Euston, Granada etc) but hadn't found anything.



Billy's post made me think that if there was a clip from Jack the Ripper in "our" show then they were both likely to have been produced by the same company.



Jack the Ripper was produced by Thames Television so I looked up their credits from the end of the 80s and found the answer.



So it was ITV, but was a one-off 90 minutes rather than a mini-series (sorry!) and the father was played by Michael Jayston.



Found thanks to team work and the wonders of the internet

[catsmeat]

Woohooo! Have looked at IMDB and that's the one! Thanks - this has been nagging at the back of my mind for ages.

[billy farmer]

I recently obtained a copy of Somewhere To Run thanks to a kind Brit Movie Member and i have done some screencaps showing some of the scenes that i can remember from this ITV Drama, the first three screencaps feature Sarah (Robin Weaver), Debbie (Victoria Murdock) and another friend Karen (Natalie Abbott) in a house watching the 2 part TV Mini-Series Jack The Ripper (1988) on the telly, Sarah has run away from home to get away from her abusive father Roger Fitzpatrick (Michael Jayston) and her friend Debbie has also run away from home (drunken father, poor home life), the fourth screencap features a scene which happens not long after the previous scene when Sarah's father Roger knocks on the door of the same house and Debbie answers the door, Roger Fitzpatrick is looking for his Daughter Sarah and Debbie shuts the door on him twice.