The Wednesday Play: Armchair Cinema – Regan (1974)

You're nicked!

1 May 2013 Rob Buckley The Weekly Play, UK TV 2 Comments

In the annals of British TV police series, few shows have been as influential or as important as The Sweeney. Starring John Thaw – the future Inspector Morse – as DI Jack Regan and Dennis Waterman – the future Minder – as DS George Carter of the Metropolitan Police’s ‘Flying Squad’, the show spawned imitators (Special Branch), homages (Life on Mars) and movies (The Sweeney), and even influenced the then-new Flying Squad themselves, showing them how to be the Flying Squad.

What’s not as well known is that The Sweeney actually started as one of Thames TV’s Armchair Cinema season, the continuation of ITV’s Armchair Theatre play series. It was written by Ian Kennedy Martin – the brother of Z-Cars (and The Italian Job and Edge of Darkness) writer Troy Kennedy Martin – with John Thaw in mind, Kennedy Martin having been script editor on 60s show Redcap, of which Thaw was the star.

Most of the essential elements of The Sweeney are here, so see below how the show started, in today’s Wednesday Play.

Author

  • Rob Buckley

    I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.

    View all posts