Damon Grant - Legacy

Legacy

Within the Brookside show the character's death was used as a catalyst for again exploring a number of issues, including the grief of the character's mother, played by Sue Johnston, and that of the character's father, Bobby Grant, played by Ricky Tomlinson, who was shown as blaming the death upon his unemployment. Ultimately, Damon's death led to the splintering of the Grant family within Brookside.

The character's funeral was watched by 7 million viewers, against Channel 4's record rating of 8.4 million set in 2005, and in The Daily Mirror, critic Clare Raymond claimed it to be one of the "most touching soap scenes". In 2001, Jim Shelley, writing for The Observer, claimed the character's death to be one of two contenders for the moment where it all went wrong for Brookside, while in 2002, with the announcement that Brookside was to end, the funeral scene was listed as the fourth greatest episode in the soap's history by The Daily Mirror. In 2003, producer Phil Redmond discussed plans to continue the show through a series of dvd's, with one planned storyline involving '"Brookside's greatest untold story" -what would happen if Barry caught up with Damon's killers.'