Watching the detectives
TOP COPPERS... MARION McMULLEN LOOKS BACK AT SOME ARRESTING PERFORMANCES AS REBUS GETS A TV REBOOT
1991
Law and order: George Baker, pictured with actress Sharon Maughan who appeared with him in three episodes of The Ruth Rendell Mysteries. He married co-star Louie Ramsay in real life after they played fictional on-screen couple Chief Inspector Reg Wexford and Dora Wexford in the long-running crime drama.
2024
On the beat: Outlander star Richard Rankin is bringing Scottish author Sir Ian Rankin’s (no relation) Inspector Rebus detective novels to life on the BBC. Scottish actors John Hannah and Ken Stott have both played the Edinburgh detective on TV in the past.
1980
Tiptoe through the tulips: Barry Foster played Dutch detective Van Der Valk in the TV crime drama of the same name. Episodes were filmed on location in Amsterdam and the theme tune, Eye Level, became a hit in the UK music charts. Marc Warren reprised the role in 2020 for a new ITV series.
1995
Scotland’s finest: Hamish Macbeth was a TV hit for the BBC in the 1990s and starred Robert Carlyle as the local cop keeping law and order in a small Scottish town. He and fellow cast member Shirley Henderson also worked together on the 1996 movie Trainspotting.
1962
Encore: Rupert Davies (seated) played French crime-solver Inspector Jules Maigret in the BBC television series Maigret, based on the detective novels of Georges Simenon. The Liverpool-born actor appeared in 52 episodes tackling his last case in 1963 in an episode called Maigret’s Little Joke.
1973
Family ties: Actor George Sewell appeared alongside his daughter Anne Elizabeth when she made her TV debut in the crime drama Special Branch. He played DCI Alan Craver in the series and, in the 1960s, he also appeared as DI Brogan in Z Cars.
1998
City lights: ITV series Liverpool 1 was set in a police vice squad and saw Mark Womack (left) as DC Mark Callaghan and Brookside’s Paul Usher as John Sullivan. Samantha Janus, who later married Mark, played Detective Constable Isobel De Pauli.
1978
Lay down the law: Don Henderson played glove-wearing Detective Sergeant George Bulman in The XYY Man, alongside Stephen Yardley in the 1970s, and went on to star in a 1980s spin-off series called Bulman. It saw the grouchy character now working as a private investigator. Bulman apparently wore gloves to hide the wedding ring he could not take off.
1994
The law of the land: Wycliffe was a hit for ITV in the 1990s and saw Jack Shepherd as Cornish-based Detective Superintendent Charles Wycliffe. Avengers and Wimbledon actor Paul Bettany, Sherlock’s Amanda Abbington and Van Der Valk’s Marc Warren are among those who appeared in the series over the years.