“We’re The Sweeney, son, and we haven’t had any dinner. You’ve kept us waiting, so unless you want a kicking, you tell us where those photographs are.”
Jack Regan
Introduction
British television had a quaint view of the police in the 1950s and 1960s. The BBC came up with the police dramas Dickson of Dot Green and Z Cars, but the world was changing at an alarming pace, and the idea of a friendly Constable ambling down a suburban, leafy street was no longer realistic. By the dawn of the 1970s, the police had a bad name—corrupt, chain-smoking individuals who loved to keep crime figures down by brute force and false statements. You got a kicking in the back of a police van just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
London in the 1970s looked utterly different to it does today. Then, there were remnants of the past. Building shells, obliterated by German bombs during World War II and a hive of pubs where the beer flowed, a cigarette fog formed and many of the gangsters and villains frequented. A time when you could come with change out of a ten-pound note and someone could get hold of you by calling the pub’s phone number. It was a city in a time when CCTV was just a pipe dream, and every bank, bookmaker, and safety deposit box was rich pickings for the criminal gangs.
Kicking the Trend
The programme title of The Sweeney comes from Cockney rhyming slang. Sweeney Todd, Flying Squad. A police unit that dealt with serious crime. A breath of fresh air broke out onto our television screens and dispelled a grey London in 1975. It was a revolutionary police drama that was gritty, full of action, punch-ups and car chases. A continuation of Regan, shown in 1974. A concept that was the brainchild of Ian Kennedy Martin, the brother of Troy, who created Z Cars. Starring John Thaw and Dennis Waterman as Jack Regan and George Carter, even those in the police force at the time said this was as close as it got to the real thing.
Essentially, Jack and George were law-abiding, but if there were a way to cut a corner to feel a collar, they would take it. They loved fighting and always had a bottle of scotch in the office filing cabinet. Fearless cops who were prepared to take tooled-up criminals armed with pistols and shotguns. This was Minder in the fast lane. Classic lines and a wealth of guest appearances from Brian Blessed, Warren Mitchell, Diana Dors, Hywel Bennett and Maureen Lipman. With a brass-heavy theme tune composed by Harry South, a sad end tune and classic cars that would be guaranteed to end up wrapped around a lamp post, this was an essential evening television viewing. Unorthodox policing became exciting and made believable under the direction of Ted Childs.
Costing £40,000 an episode, The Sweeney regularly used to attract seven million viewers and ran for four series between 1975 and 1978 with 53 episodes. Euston Films produced it for Thames Television. Film versions would follow with Sweeney in 1977, Sweeney 2 in 1978 and a remake, The Sweeney, with Ray Winston as Regan and Ben Drew as Carter. It would be a show that would propel Thaw and Carter into Stardom, with John going on to star in numerous dramas, including Morse and Dennis Waterman in Minder and New Tricks.
