THE BILL WOULDN’T BE MUCH COP NOW
MARK Wingett is warning fans that The Bill will never return to TV.
The actor, who played Jim Carver, thinks it would be too expensive to revive it.
The 59-year-old told the Daily Star Sunday: “People still think of The Bill fondly. They really miss it. And there hasn’t been a proper uniformed police series since it finished.
“But I don’t think it will ever come back.
“When it was on, it grew from a small studio into this huge thing that had 500 people working on it. So it would be very hard to start it again from scratch.
“It would have to be a new series with a new title and a new cast.
“I’m certainly too old for it now.”
The star reckons another problem is that
Britain’s police forces have changed so much since The Bill was axed in 2010.
Mark added: “Staffing numbers are different and things are policed in a different way. “Things are much more violent now. And terrorism is around a lot more. So it would be a very different show.” The Bill ran for
26 series and more than 2,400 episodes, pulling in
11million viewers.
Fans still remember cast favourites including Graham Cole, Jeff Stewart and Trudie Goodwin. The Bill regular Tony Scannell, inset, who played DS Ted Roach, died this week at the age of 74. Tributes poured in and he was described as “a wonderful actor” by his co-stars.
The show also launched the careers of big acting names including Keira Knightley, Martin Freeman and Sean Bean. Mark said: “The great thing about The Bill was it opened doors for people. It was one of the major employers of actors ever in this country. “There were six or seven guest actors every show and there were four being made at a time. I think we lost about 25% of TV production when it went. “And it wasn’t just great for actors, but also people in production. “One of the trainee make-up designers went on to be the personal make-up artist for Leonardo DiCaprio when he was filming Blood Diamond.” Classic episodes of The Bill have started airing on the Drama channel and are available to stream on UKTV Play.