The Bill

Did You Know?

• The theme tune is called "Overkill" and was composed by Charlie Morgan and Andy Pask, notable for its use of septuple meter.
• The first opening sequence featured two police officers walking down a street with images of Sun Hill interspersed.
• In 2010, The Bill was nominated for a Royal Television Society award for Best Soap/Continuing Drama, beating Coronation Street and Emmerdale onto the nominations list.

History

Geoff McQueen, a new television writer, first came up with the idea for a one-off drama in 1983, calling it Old Bill. Michael Chapman brought the project to Thames Television, an ITV franchise holder, and renamed it Woodentop for its inclusion in the Storyboard series. It was broadcast on ITV on 16 August 1983, featuring Mark Wingett as PC Jim Carver and Trudie Goodwin as WPC June Ackland, both officers at the fictional Sun Hill station. Though planned as a standalone piece, ITV was impressed enough to order a full series, which debuted on 16 October 1984 with one weekly hour-long episode airing after the watershed. The first episode was titled "Funny Ol' Business – Cops & Robbers", and the show was renamed The Bill. The first series comprised 11 episodes in 1984, while series two and three each had 12 episodes, airing in 1985–1986 and 1987. Over time, the storylines moved away from rookie Carver to focus on Detective Inspector Roy Galloway and Sergeant Bob Cryer.

Broadcasting and production

Three locations served as the set for Sun Hill police station. The first was a set of buildings in Artichoke Hill, Wapping, East London, but industrial action at the nearby News International plant during the winter of 1985–86 led to altercations between strikers and actors mistaken for real officers, prompting a move. The second location was an old record distribution depot in Barlby Road, North Kensington, North West London, where filming began in March 1987. In 1989, the owners ordered The Bill out due to redevelopment plans. After a search, a disused hospital in Clapham was the favourite but fell through; an old wine distribution warehouse in Merton, South West London, was chosen instead. The move was made in March 1990 and disguised on screen by the ongoing refurbishment of Sun Hill and then a terrorist car-bomb explosion in the station car-park that killed PC Ken Melvin. Filming took place across London, mainly in South London and the London Borough of Merton. Locations included the Cambridge Estate, High Path Estate, Alton Estate, Phipps Bridge, Roundshaw Estate, and Sutton Estate. Scenes were also filmed in east London, Tooting, Greenwich, Croydon, and in 2008 the episode "Demolition Girl" was filmed in The Gorbals, Glasgow. The Sun Hill set at Wimbledon Studios remained until mid 2013 when it was dismantled. The series is set in the fictional Canley Borough Operational Command Unit in East London; creator Geoff McQueen said he named Sun Hill after a street name in his home town of Royston, Hertfordshire.

Episodes

The Bill initially had 12 episodes per year, each an hour long with a separate storyline. In 1988, the format changed to year-round broadcast with two 30-minute episodes per week. In 1993, this expanded to three 30-minute episodes per week. In 1998, the format changed to two one-hour episodes each week, recorded in 16:9 widescreen Digibeta. In 2009, the series began broadcasting in HD and was reduced to once a week. The final episode, "Respect", aired on 31 August 2010 after 2,425 episodes, due to declining ratings. In 2000, a one-off episode called "The Trial of Eddie Santini" concluded a long-running storyline. In 2001, "Beech on the Run" was filmed in Australia. Other overseas episodes include 1999's "Foreign Body" filmed in France, and the two-part crossover "Proof of Life" with the German series Leipzig Homicide, filmed in Germany and broadcast in November 2008. Two live episodes were broadcast: "Fatal Consequences" on 30 October 2003, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Woodentop, watched by around 10 million viewers; and "Confessions of a Killer" on 22 September 2005, celebrating ITV's 50th birthday, attracting more than nine million viewers. The second live episode featured the first use of computer-generated imagery on the show since a real fireball could not be created.

Cast

The Bill had a large regular cast to support the number of episodes produced each year. 174 actors have formed part of the main cast since the series began. Many guest roles were played by actors who later achieved high profile, including Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Ray Winstone and Sean Bean. The original one-off Woodentop followed PC Jim Carver and featured WPC June Ackland. When the full series began, there were 13 regular cast members, with only two uniformed women: WPCs June Ackland and Viv Martella. There were no female CID characters. The first black police officer, PC Abel Lyttleton, was introduced in 1985. In 2002, new executive producer Paul Marquess introduced a serialised, almost soap-opera style focusing on officers' personal lives, writing out several characters during a station fire and introducing new ones including PC Kerry Young, Inspector Gina Gold, and DC Ken Drummond. The longest serving cast members were Trudie Goodwin and Jeff Stewart, who starred in more than 900 episodes, and Graham Cole, who starred in 1,112 episodes. Billy Murray played Don Beech from 1995 to 2000; the corrupt detective sergeant's notoriety led to the special Beech on the Run and the six-part spin-off Beech is Back, both in 2001, and a final stint in 2004.