The Bill

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This article is about the British TV series. For the Polish punk rock band, see The Bill (band).
The Bill

Format Drama
Run time Approx. 45 min per episode
Creator(s) Geoff McQueen
Starring Approx. 25 regulars
Channel ITV1
Production company Thames Television for talkbackTHAMES
Air dates 16 October 1984 – Present
No. of episodes 2137 (as of 4 January 2007)
IMDb profile

The Bill is a long-running British television police procedural shown on ITV1, at 8pm, usually on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Catch-ups of the show can be seen on ITV3. Past episodes can also be seen on UKTV Gold. In Australia, the show is shown on the ABC, and in Ireland by RTÉ One.

The setting is the Sun Hill district of the fictional London borough of Canley. Other police stations in the borough, mentioned but (usually) never seen, are Barton Street, which is the location of Borough Headquarters, Stafford Row and Spicer Street. Barton Street is also a real street in Gloucester, some 102 miles west of London. Canley is approximately contiguous with the real London Borough of Tower Hamlets, and is also a real district within the city of Coventry, some 100 miles north of London.

The Bill is unusual among police shows: it takes a serial format and it does not focus on one particular area of police work. Instead, the show's time is equally divided between the work of officers on one shift in the uniform division, and the work of the CID.

It started as a one-off drama for ITV entitled Woodentop; this pilot show starred Mark Wingett as PC Jim Carver and Trudie Goodwin as WPC June Ackland on Carver's first day on the beat at Sun Hill police station. It was originally devised by Geoff McQueen, and it impressed ITV so much that they decided to make a series out of it. Goodwin continues to star on the now twice-weekly show, while Wingett left the cast in early 2005.

In October 2003, a special episode of The Bill was broadcast live from its London studios to mark the show's 20th year on air. At 8pm on Thursday, 22 September 2005 another episode was broadcast live to mark the ITV Network's 50th anniversary. The episode was written by Graham Mitchell and co-produced and directed by Sylvie Boden.


Contents

[edit] History

Main article: History of The Bill

Following the pilot in 1983, the first proper episode of The Bill was transmitted in 1984. Starting with hour-long separate storylines, The Bill went on to be half an hour in length between 1987 and 1998 before going back to hour-long episodes. From 1998 until 2002, The Bill became more serialised, and when Paul Marquess took over in 2002 The Bill almost became a "police-soap". Under Johnathan Young, who took over as executive producer in 2005, the more sensational and sometimes unrealistic storylines have been dropped, with more time being spent on crime storylines.

[edit] DVD releases

In Australia

  • Seasons 1,2 and 3. 12 Disc Super Wallet. (36 episodes including the pilot)
  • Seasons 4 and 5. 12 Disc Super Wallet. (48 episodes)

[edit] Current cast

[edit] Senior officers

[edit] Sergeants

[edit] Uniform constables

[edit] CID constables

[edit] Other recurring characters

  • Deputy Assistant Commissioner Georgia Hobbs (Kazia Pelka)
  • Matt Hinkley - the station CPS Duty Prosecutor, married to PC Emma Hinkley.
  • Mia Perry - the Metropolitan Police Service's Press Officer and has made an appearance when there are big investigations going on within Sun Hill. They include the dissapearance of Amy Tennant, the Louise Larson case and also the Bombastic Nightclub disaster.
  • Kristen Shaw - a drug dealer who DC Zain Nadir is undercover with to try and infiltrate her organisation.
  • Paul Haskew - a drug dealer who DC Zain Nadir is undercover with to try and infiltrate his organisation.
  • James Tennant - father of missing 7yr old Amy.
  • Ruth Tennant - step mother of missing 7yr old Amy.
  • Rod Jessop - June Ackland's boyfriend
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] Character changes


Main article: Previous Characters on The Bill

[edit] Trivia

This article or section does not cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations. (help, get involved!) This article has been tagged since December 2006.
  • The white Police uniform shirts are washed with a black sock, to prevent too much glare when seen on-screen.
  • One of creator Geoff McQueen's rules of the series, was that every single scene would feature Police Officer(s), as to make the stories feel as if they are being told through the eyes of the Police, hence break away scenes, with a crime being committed (without an Officer on scene), or criminals planning their movements, etc. are not featured. There have been a couple of times this rule has been broken. One gray area was in the episode broadcast 8th November 2006. The first few scenes followed Nikki Wright (Gillian Taylforth), who is a Sgt, but based at Barton Street - usually the stories exclusively follow Sun Hill Officers. This can, however, be slightly countermanded, by the fact that she would shortly become a Sun Hill officer.
  • Another rule implemented at the start of the series, was that stories would follow only the work of the Officers, and not feature their outside life (unless directly linked to their work). As the series has progressed, through its several revamps, this rule has gradually been relaxed.
  • The Bill has been broadcast in over 55 different countries, from Bahrain to Barbados, Denmark to Dubai, Malaysia to Mauritius, and Spain to Sweden. It is one of the top-rated shows in Australia and New Zealand.
  • The plodding feet that adorned the show's credits for 15 years were originally intended to be those of Trudie Goodwin (June Ackland) and Mark Wingett, (Jim Carver). But they were too busy filming other scenes so two extras were recruited instead - Karen England and Paul Page Hanson.
  • Prince William has admitted that he enjoys The Bill and June Ackland is his favourite.
  • The police uniforms used in the series are genuine and are locked away for security reasons every night with no complete uniform being locked in any one cupboard.
  • In the early days of The Bill a local resident registered her protest at what she deemed to be a stereotypical portrayal of council estates as hotbeds of crime. She held up filming by stationing herself in the background with an ironing board, iron and basket full of laundry.
  • Real police officers took such a dim view of previews they were shown from the first series of The Bill that they refused to attend the launch party. The Police Federation later attacked the programme for implying that racial prejudice existed within the Force.
  • When filming on location, The Bill does not have permission to use sirens. These are added in the dubbing suite.
  • Tony Blair and his family recently came out as fans of The Bill.
  • 2006 is the first year since 2001 that has not involved the death of a police officer in the series.
  • Sarah Tansey, who plays the re-occuring role of missing 7 year old Amy Tennant's step-mother Ruth Barker, is married to Hywel Simons, who played Sergeant Craig "Gay" Gilmore until 2003.
  • In a recent brief storyline, of Gina Gold having an affair with married businessman Peter Harris, Roberta Taylor plays opposite her real-life husband Peter Guiness.

[edit] Spin-offs

The Bill has spawned three spin-off productions.

The first of these was known as Burnside. It lasted a single series of six episodes, the first of which debuted on 7th of July 2000. The series focused on the newly promoted DCI Burnside as a member of the National Crime Squad. It was created and produced by Richard Handford.

The second spin-off debuted in 2001, and also lasted only six episodes, although was more of a break away from the regular Bill (it was shown in the Bill timeslot) than a complete spin-off. Beech is Back focused on dodgy ex-DS Don Beech, still on the run from Claire Stanton who wants him brought to justice for the murder of her boyfriend DS John Boulton. None of the episodes were given titles, with each being part of a single six part serial. At the end Beech is brought to justice and sent to prison, although he would return in The Bill years later.

In 2003, ITV1 debuted the third spin-off of the show, entitled M.I.T., renamed Murder Investigation Team for it's second series. The first episode investigated the drive-by shooting of Sgt. Matthew Boyden, who had been at Sun Hill for 11 years. The first series consisted of 10 one-hour episodes. The second series was filmed in 2004, but not shown until two years later, and consisted of 4 ninety-minute episodes. It featured Eva Sharpe (Diane Parish) from The Bill, who had transferred to M.I.T.. The series was created by Paul Marquess. The second series was produced by Jonathan Young.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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