Heartbeat (television)

Heartbeat is a British television series which began in 1992 on Yorkshire Television. Now in its 15th series, it has clocked up over 250 episodes. The show is set in the 1960s and revolves around the work of a group of police officers in the fictional North Yorkshire town of Ashfordly, whose "patch" also includes the nearby village of Aidensfield, a fictionalised version of the real-life village of Goathland in the North York Moors, where the series is mostly filmed. Each episode is an hour long, including commercial breaks.

Trivia

• In early seasons, the theme song for Heartbeat was sung by actor Nick Berry, who played the central character part of PC Nick Rowan (later Sgt. Nick Rowan). Nick Berry's recording of the theme song reached number 2 on the UK singles chart in 1992.
• The Torrey Canyon oil spill provided an off-screen plot point in a series ostensibly set in 1969, despite having actually occurred two years earlier.
• Occasionally records from the 1970s appear, anachronistically, on the soundtrack. The most recent record so featured is believed to be The Hollies' 1974 hit, "The Air That I Breathe".
• David Essex once appeared in the show, playing a traveller, or tinker. Other famous people to have appeared in cameo roles include Charlotte Church, Gary Barlow and David Dickinson.
• In some episodes the police are shown examining real maps of North Yorkshire. As expected, these place Ashfordly somewhere inland from Whitby on the North York Moors. However, the exact location of Aidensfield relative to Ashfordly is never made clear. The impression is given that the two are very close (for example, the Ashfordly police are often seen in the Aidensfield village pub when off duty). However, in one episode it was stated that racers in "hot rod" cars took about 17 minutes to make the journey. Even at a conservative 35 m.p.h. along the country roads, this still equates to a distance on ten miles ? rather further than expected.