TV

Children's Hospital

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Children's Hospital is a British television fly-on-the-wall documentary series based at the Sheffield Children's Hospital, Birmingham Children's Hospital, and Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool. It was broadcast on BBC One between 1993 and the early-2000s. According to scholar Annette Hill, the series had "all the hallmarks of a docu-soap", saying its "personal, melodramatic stories appeal to viewers, with more that 8 million tuning into the first series, despite widespread criticism from the press." Peter Lee-Wright observes that the series marked a transition in fly-on-the-wall documentaries by shifting the emphasis from the practical considerations onto the "human dramas being played out ... [capturing] the pain of the children ... and their parents' rollercoaster rides." The theme music was composed by Debbie Wiseman. The music was released as a CD single in 1997, containing full orchestral and piano versions of the theme, alongside the shorter versions used for the opening and closing sequences. The orchestral version was also released on the compilation album World of Sound. A new solo piano performance, titled "Ray of Sunshine", of the theme was included on the 2011 album Wiseman: Piano Stories.