You’ll have absorbed key strands of The Sweeney‘s DNA even if you’ve never watched an episode, ITV’s groundbreaking police drama having had an impact and influence far bigger than its creators could ever have imagined. Writer Ian Kennedy Martin had met the young John Thaw in the 1960s and was keen to work with him again, penning a 90-minute script about a maverick detective inspector for Thames Television’s Armchair Cinema slot in 1974.
Production company Euston Films saw the idea’s potential, and production on a 13-part Sweeney series began before Regan was even broadcast. That 90-minute trial run, directed on 16mm film by Tom Clegg, is included here, a pithy no-frills thriller. The main elements are already in place. Thaw’s DI Jack Regan gets to utter the line “Get your trousers on – you’re nicked!”, and his partnership with the more thoughtful DS George Carter (Dennis Waterman) seems well-established. Garfield Morgan’s tetchy DCI Frank Haskins (pictured below) necks indigestion tablets whilst complaining about Regan’s conduct (“I don’t like your methods!”), though acknowledging that he does mostly get results.
Regan makes superb use of shabby South London locations, its action sequences nicely choreographed. Ian Kennedy Martin envisaged The Sweeney developing into a dialogue-heavy police procedural largely shot on custom-built sets, but producer Ted Childs wanted something grittier and more cinematic. Kennedy Martin’s younger brother Troy was one of several writers drafted in as replacements, each one given strict guidelines as to how to structure individual episodes – this being commercial television, ad breaks separate the three acts and a pre-credit sequence serves to lure audiences in.
Note how erudite and witty the scripts are: pay close attention, or you’ll miss references to Samuel Beckett (“Who’s Godot?” “He plays full back for QPR”), Gilbert and Sullivan and 19th century fiction. Regan, working undercover as a lorry driver, complains about having to eat fry-ups in transport cafés, missing grilled sole and Muscadet. Underlying every episode is the sense that Regan and Carter are among the last of their kind, men whose instinctive abilities are at odds with a new breed of professional crime-fighter, witheringly dismissed as “pin-striped pen pushers with second class honours degrees.” Look out for the meek time-and-motion man sent into New Scotland Yard to assess the efficiency of the Flying Squad’s modus operandi, Regan taking him for a liquid lunch to prevent him reaching any damning conclusions. There’s a frightening amount of drinking and smoking on display, and no one wears a seat belt. “Who taught you to drive? Evel Knievel?” shouts Carter to his chauffeur after a particularly hairy chase.
Highlights include “Ringer”, the villains played by Brian Blessed and Ian Hendry, an episode notable for Regan’s iconic “We’re the Sweeney, son, and we haven’t had any dinner…” rant. The resolution of “Jackpot”, where a missing £35k needs to be retrieved, hinges on repeated scrutiny of footage of the arrest. Think Zapruder film, but in Peckham. “Stoppo Driver” plays out like a classic noir, a talented police chauffeur cruelly blackmailed into acting as a getaway driver. “Big Spender” includes a great turn from Warren Mitchell as a car park attendant on the take, though his attempt to avoid capture veers dangerously close to Benny Hill or Two Ronnies territory. Warren Clarke, Brian Glover and Jim Norton stand out as supporting players, though Alfred Marks is fatally miscast as a dog-loving swindler hiding out in France.
The final episode, “Abduction” is especially good, the kidnapping of Regan’s young daughter the cue for some gruelling scenes between Thaw and Janet Key as his ex-wife Kate. We see why the marriage failed, Kate telling her ex that she still loves him but hates his job. Regan insists that a man and his career are inseparable. A 2002 booklet essay written by Waterman for the previous DVD release of the series on the now-defunct Network label reveals how quickly scenes were filmed, usually with minimal rehearsal (“there was no sitting around talking about characterisation for two weeks”), and that serving police officers complained that the series was too realistic. Extras include episode introductions and commentaries carried over from the Network set. At its peak, The Sweeney was one of the great television dramas. Get this set, its newly-remastered images and sound pin-sharp, and find out why.
