Prisoner: Cell Block H joins My5 offering

Cult Australian jailbird drama Prisoner: Cell Block H has joined the My5 streaming service from Channel 5.

The soap has previously aired on Channel 5, as one of its launch shows in 1997. The series previously aired on ITV in the late 1980s and 90s. My5 has added the first ten episodes of the soap to stream, with further editions to be added in the future, should the current batch prove popular with viewers.

Prisoner: Cell Block H, created by Reg Watson (Crossroads, Neighbours, The Young Doctors), was his take on British drama series Within These Walls (LWT) and launched on Network 10 Australia in 1979. The series followed the inmates of ‘Block H’ of Wentworth Detention Centre and make household names of its cast both down under and in the UK when ITV began screening the series in the late 1980s – after the show had ended production some years earlier.

The lives of the women in detention, and the officers who worked the cell block, ran for almost 700 episodes and led to a stage-show musical spin-off and more recently a reimaging of the programme for television as Wentworth. It screened in the UK as Wentworth Prison.

Soaps on streaming services have proved popular in recent years with the STV Player gaining high streams for Channel 4’s gritty serial Brookside alongside their own offering of Take the High Road while selected episodes of ATV’s Crossroads proved the most streamed soap on BritBox for three months when it was added to the service in 2021. Other classics on BritBox include ATV’s General Hospital, YTV’s Emmerdale Farm and Granada’s classic Coronation Street.