Age against the machine
Marion McMullen looks at how old cops were coming out on top 20 years ago with the launch of New Tricks
THE old saying goes “you can’t teach a dog new tricks” but an unconventional bunch of ex-coppers brought out of retirement to work on unsolved and open cases was at the heart of crime drama New Tricks.
The BBC series launched 20 years ago on March 27, 2003, and saw old-school policing clash with modern political correctness.
Dennis Waterman, James Bolam and
Alun Armstrong played Gerry Standing, Jack Halford and Brian Lane. They were eccentric, bent the rules, followed their hunches and ignored police procedure, but they got results.
Creator Roy Mitchell, a lifelong West Bromwich Albion supporter, got the surnames from “Halfords Lane Standing,” which used to be printed on tickets for the Halfords Lane stand at the Hawthorns.
Amanda Redman played Superintendent Sandra Pullman. She was sidelined after a hostage rescue went disastrously wrong and put in charge of a new department only to find that the unit consisted of former detectives who had long since handed over their badges.
The BBC offering proved so popular it survived several cast changes and ran for 107 episodes over 12 series. All episodes can now be seen on BBC iPlayer.
For Dennis Waterman, who had starred in TV shows Minder and The Sweeney, it marked his return to a long-running television show for the first time in a decade.
James Bolam’s real life wife, Susan Jameson, appeared as Esther Lane the longsuffering wife of Alun’s character.
Guest stars over the years included comedy actor Eric Sykes, Father Brown and Fast Show favourite Mark Williams and James Bond star Honor Blackman.
Alun spent 10 years on New Tricks and said: “I enjoyed every single minute. There was brilliant chemistry between all of us.”
The cold case unit dealt with its final case in 2015 when the cast included Tamzin Outhwaite, Denis Lawson, Nicholas Lyndhurst and Larry Lamb.