The Bill was also released in the US with the first series, sadly at the moment no further series are planned for release.

• Series 1 (Episodes 1-12) was released on June 5, 2007.

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Theme Music

Rick Wakeman was offered the chance to write the theme tune either for this series or for "Lytton's Diary" (1985). He chose the latter, believing that it had the best potential of the two to be a long running series. It ran for two seasons. The job went to Andy Pask and Charlie Morgan who wrote "Overkill".

There are several versions of this theme. The first, used between 1984 - 1987, featured a guitar riff, with synthesizer, bass and drum accompaniment, with "middle-eight" sections performed on synthesisers. The second is a remix of the first, used between 1988 - 1998. Instead of the guitar riff, it was replaced with a more bouncy saxophone riff, and is better known than the original. Both versions were written in the irregular time of 7/8 with the exception of the "middle-eight" sections which were written in 4/4. The current arrangement is by Lawrence Oakley.

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Controvercies and reception

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

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Overseas broadcast

The Bill has been broadcast in over 55 different countries

• It is very popular in Australia, where it is shown on the ABC1.
  • Currently two new episodes are shown on Saturdays from 20:30 and repeated on the digital-only channel ABC2 on Tuesday. Until late 2007 new episodes were shown on ABC1 two episodes were shown per week, one at 20.30 on Tuesday and the other at the same time on Saturday, when the episodes were half an hour one was shown on tuesday and two on Saturday.
  • Older repeats sometimes shown on ABC1 at 14:00 Monday-Thursday, usually when parliament is not in session. While initially years behind the new episodes, this repeats are currently about a month behind.
  • Additionally, older episodes can be seen on UK.TV. As of January 2008, episodes from the 1990s can be seen on weekdays, whilst episodes from 2005 can be seen on weekends.
• In New Zealand, the series is shown on UKTV twice a week
• In Sweden the show was retitled "Sunhillspolisstation" (Sun Hill Police Station) by broadcaster TV4. Now it is broadcast on Kanal 9 using The Bill, daily at approx. 15:00 with a repeat the following morning approx 04:00.
• It screens in Ireland on RTÉ One, which is currently showing episodes from 2003. However, RTÉ does not show it in its proper hour long duration, but instead splits one hour long episode into two half hour shows five days a week thus only showing two and a half episodes each week. Fans of the show and TV critics in Ireland have nicknamed it as the "Old Bill", as viewers in the Republic can watch the same episodes as the UK, on UTV.
• In Belgium the series is broadcast on één.

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Novels

A series of six novelisations of The Bill were published between 1985 and 1992, by Thames/Methuan Publishing (under the Mandarin imprint). Each book was written by John Burke, and adapted from television scripts by Geoff McQueen, Barry Appleton, Ginnie Hole, Christopher Russell, Lionel Goldstein, Al Hunter, Nicholas McInnery, JC Wilsher, Jonathan Rich and Robin Muckherjee.

The format of the books differed from the original scripts in minor details: the episodes are presented in a more serialised style, with the narrative events of separate episodes moving into and out of each other, not unlike the format used on the television series itself at present. An example of this in Book 1 is the events of the episode "The Drug's Raid", where the first part of that episode is shown to take place midway through the book, while the last part takes place several chapters later (ostensibly after DI Galloway has received new evidence several weeks later). As such, what were separate episodes on television are woven into a single narrative in the books, with completely new linking material between events in one episode and events in another.

Also, an early taboo of the series itself (whose format firmly established that we never went home with the officers to see their private lives) was broken by, for example, showing DI Galloway at home with his wife and his daughter during the first two books.

When the novels began to adapt the half-hour episodes (Book Three onwards) there is a noticeable jump in continuity, as the sudden influx of a larger cast of characters meant that not every "first episode" of each character could be adapted, so several characters can be seen suddenly appearing half way through with little or no introduction as to who they are or where they came from.

All the novelisations were published in paperback editions. The first two books were also published in rarer to find hardcover editions. The stories from Series Three of the tv series never received a novelisation because of various unavoidable production problems with that series.

• The Bill 1 (published 1985) - Adapted select episodes of Series One (1984). Cover photo of PC Jim Carver chasing a suspect.
• The Bill 2 (published 1987) - Adapted select episodes of Series Two (1985). Cover photo of Sergeant Bob Cryer in civilian clothing.
• The Bill 3 (published 1989) - Adapted select episodes of Series Four (1988). Cover photo of Sergeant Bob Cryer and Inspector Christine Fraser in Sun Hill station carpark.
• The Bill 4 (published 1990) - Adapted select episodes of Series Five (1989). Cover photo of DC "Tosh" Lines and DC Mike Dashwood.
• The Bill 5 (published 1991) - Adapted select episodes of Series Five (1989). Cover photo of DS Ted Roach.
• The Bill 6 (published 1992) - Adapted select episodes of Series Six (1990). Cover photo of Inspector Andrew Munroe and DI Frank Burnside.

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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 7 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 a title, 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 three years later.

In 2003, ITV debuted the third spin-off of the show, entitled MIT: Murder Investigation Team. The first episode investigated the drive-by shooting of Sgt. Matthew Boyden, who had been at Sun Hill for eleven years. The first series consisted of ten one-hour episodes. The second series was filmed in 2004, but not shown until mid 2005, and consisted of four ninety-minute episodes. It featured Eva Sharpe (Diane Parish) from The Bill, who had transferred to MIT. (Before it was broadcast, it was also rumoured to feature Chris Simmons as Mickey Webb, who had recently departed from The Bill, but these rumours turned out to be false). The series was created by Paul Marquess. The second series was produced by Johnathan Young.

A German version of The Bill, utilising original Bill scripts was produced for RTL Television from 1994 to 2006. It was called Die Wache. [9] [10]

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References

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External links

• The Bill at itv.com
• The Bill at the Internet Movie Database
• The Bill at TV.com
• Wikia has a wiki on this subject: The Bill Wiki
• BILLFans Discussion Forum - Chat with 100's of other fans.
• The Bill Bios
• Sierra Oscar - Online fansite and gallery dedicated to The Bill
• Any Previous

v • d • e The Bill Notable storylines Woodentop • The Don Beech Scandal • Beech on the Run • The Sun Hill Fire (2002) • The Sun Hill Fire (2005) • Sun Hill Siege (2007) • Sunhill Bombings (2008) Production staff Geoff McQueen • Charlie Morgan Related articles Live episodes • Characters • Cast members • Deaths • List of episodes • Sun Hill • Title sequences

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