As we slowly crawl out of lockdown, I’ve been catching up with a few people who have dropped off my radar for the past couple of months or so. After getting the pleasantries out of the way, each conversation slowly turns to what we’ve been reading, listening to or watching during the hours indoors. Without doubt, one TV series that gets mentioned more than any other is ‘The Sweeney.’
You can find it on ITV 4 most weekdays, its 53 episodes seemingly on a continual loop. This seminal series was massive news when first broadcast in early1975. I would have been 12 around then and going to school the next day having not seen the latest one was a real faux pas (yes we spoke like that in my school on the Old Kent Road) in the chats before lessons started.
Looking back at the shows now, there is a fair amount of graphic violence going on, with shooters, right-handers and dead bodies all over the place, let alone strippers and brasses making an appearance most weeks.
For me to stay up and watch it at its 9pm slot on Thursdays at first then Mondays before reverting back to Thursdays, took a bit of persuading, well for the for the first series at least. ‘He’ll be aright’ said the old man to my ever-worried mum ‘it’ll be educational for the boy…’
And you know what he was right. Cheers Dad.
The writing was of the highest calibre and on the roster producing such fine work would be the likes of Trevor Preston, Ranald Graham, Tony Hoare along with Troy Kennedy Martin.
It all began with a pilot episode called ‘Regan’ for the Armchair Cinema series and that went out in June 1974. It was written by Ian Kennedy Martin, whose brother Troy (mentioned earlier and who wrote the screenplay for the original ‘Italian Job’) would go on to write many of the episodes that followed as well as ‘Sweeney 2’ the second spin off feature film in 1978. The first film was produced in 1976.
The ‘Regan’ of the title was Detective Inspector John Albert ‘Jack’ Regan, and was based on a real detective. RADA graduate John Thaw played the lead role. The working class son of a Manchester lorry driver, he was aged 33 at the time, though looked older. ‘I was born looking 50’ he once said.
He played Regan as a rough, tough old school copper, with a drink seemingly forever in one hand and a fag in the other, and an eye for the ladies. Regan was also Mancunian by birth but he had been down South for many years, hence his wobbly ‘London’ accent at times. Divorced from his wife Kate, with the job cited as the ‘other woman’ he had a daughter Susie.
“We’re the Sweeney, son, and we haven’t had our dinner.’
The success of the one off TV film, which attained healthy viewing figures of 7 million, led to a series of ‘The Sweeney’ being commissioned, to be made by Euston Films, who were part of Thames Television, working out of Colet Court in Hammersmith. ‘The Sweeney’ was cut short slang for ‘Sweeney Todd’ meaning Flying Squad, AKA ‘The Heavy Mob’, or ‘Glory Boys,’ basically an elite force, known mainly for taking on armed robbery blaggers.
Regan was the ‘bad cop’ as opposed to his ‘good cop’ sidekick, South London Detective Sergeant George Hamilton (who knew?) Carter aged 26 played by Dennis Waterman. They in turn reported to chief inspector Frank Haskins played by Garfield Morgan, all whilst wearing a dazzling array of kipper ties. Haskins and Regan constantly butt heads over police procedure and how the job should be done. Regan goes for results by whatever means necessary, with Haskins, going more by the book.
This series showed the police warts and all, a first for British television. Ironically enough, during the time of making the series, the ‘real’ Sweeney at Scotland Yard was undergoing a trying time, with its commander Kenneth Drury eventually going down for eight years on corruption charges.
The great chemistry between the two main players, both on and off screen, comes shining through your telly. And it was not without a lot of humour too.
‘I could be arrested for what you’re thinking.’
One other character that appears in many of the scenes between Regan and Carter is Bill their driver, and ‘straight man ‘ on occasions, played by actor Tony Allen, went on to be the wardrobe assistant to Thaw on many of his later projects.
Euston films tried to get a deal with Triumph, Jaguar and Rover to supply cars for the series, before finally getting Ford to step in, thus making its Granada model a star of the show also.
‘Get your trousers on, you’re nicked!’
Producer Ted Childs wanted to shoot on real locations, with plenty fast paced action, with car chases high on his agenda. It was filmed on 16mm film, which in turn gave the programme a documentary feel at times.
‘Shut It!’
Each episode was filmed over 10 days at a cost of £40,000 each approximately, with a screen time of 48 minutes, minus the iconic opening titles and theme tunes by legendary UK jazz man Harry South. The viewing figures for the show were very impressive with the highest recorded being 19 million viewers for one of the last episodes.
‘He’s a weirdo and he’s hard enough to roller-skate on…’
Well known actors and actresses queued up for parts in the show with the likes of James Booth, Warren Mitchell, Hywel Bennett, Lynda Bellingham, Joss Ackland, Warren Clarke, Michael Elphick, John Hurt Diana Dors, Karl Howman, John Junkin, Roy Kinnear, Maureen Lipman, Ronald Fraser, Morecambe & Wise, Richard Wilson, George Cole, Geoffrey Palmer, Brian Blessed, Peter Vaughan, June Brown and Ray Winstone all making an appearance.
The series was first broadcast in January 1975 with the last episode going out in December 1978. In that, we see Regan banged up on a dodgy corruption charge, which results in him talking of resigning and doubting if he’ll ever come back.
The real demise of the show is said to be down to a combination of high production costs, creative creaks beginning to show and the wages that John Thaw was on. It is said, he wanted more.
Sadly, John Thaw CBE died aged just 60, after achieving further success in the TV show ‘Inspector Morse.’ Dennis Waterman is still with us and he too went on to further glory in the series ‘Minder’ alongside the one and only George Cole.
Carter – ‘It’s a hard world, guv’
Regan – ‘Keep it to yourself, George. No one else wants to know.’
I’m now old enough to stay up and watch as many episodes of The Sweeney as I want and I never tire of doing so. With lines as good as that one above, who can blame me?
The Mumper of SE5
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