High Hopes is a sitcom made in Wales, produced and directed by Gareth Gwenlan for BBC Wales and is set in a fictional area of the South Wales Valleys. It stars Margaret John as widow Elsie Hepplewhite, Robert Blythe as her son Richard Hepplewhite, Steven Meo as Hoffman and Oliver Wood (formerly Ben Evans) as Charlie. It revolves around Elsie's son Richard (known as Fagin)'s scrapes with the two boys, who attempted to rob the Hepplewhites' house in the first episode. The pilot was shown on BBC all over the UK in 1999, with slight differences to future cast and plot.

The series started in 2002 to much acclaim, and in March 2007, filming began on its fifth series.

(Series 6 has been commissioned and is due to appear sometime in 2008)

Richard "Fagin" Hepplewhite (Robert Blythe) is an agoraphobic ex-criminal who runs a business from his home in the Welsh valleys, after serving at Strangeways prison. He lives with his Mam, and two teenage tearaways called Charlie and Hoffman (Steve Meo and Ben Evans). Every week, they enter many scrapes, like stealing Tom Jones' first dickie-bow to finding a famous Welsh painting called Dafydd Ar y Twmp... Written by Anonymous

A half-hour daytime drama taped in Toronto with both U.S. and Canadian personnel, High Hopes revolved around the character of Dr. Neal Chapman, a family counselor in the college town of Port Hamilton. The locus of the story was his large old house, with other action around Delaney College. Neal was divorced from Helen, and lived with their eighteen year old daughter, Jessica, and his mother. Neal was involved with two women: Trudy Bowen, the host of a local television talk show, and Louise Bates, the real estate agent who sold Neal the house. Louise was also a tenant in Neal's house, along with Dr. Jean Bataille and Neal's close friend, lawyer Walter Telford. When Jessica learned that she was not actually Neal's and Helen's child, but the daughter of Helen's sister, Paula Myles, she too took a sexual interest in the man who was formerly her father. An early report of the program noted, "In succeeding episodes, it is planned to introduce Jessica's real father, Trudy's parents, a lottery winner, a fire, two marriages, and a death." As if Chapman's own family problems were not enough, his role as a counselor provided the opportunity to introduce parallel plots that involved his clients. Written by Blaine Allan