Screenplay: The Black and Blue Lamp The Illustrated Gazette

Synopsis

Contemporary London. In voice-over, policemen are called

to the Coliseum Bingo Hall on Harrow Road, where an
officer has been shot trying to intercept two armed men.
Speeding to the scene, they are told that the victim is PC
George Dixon. One replies, “Christ, Dixon. Isn’t anything
sacred?”

Black-and-white. The opening sequence of the Ealing film

The Blue Lamp (1950): a car chase which ends with a crash
and the fatal shooting of an innocent bystander. There
follows a compilation of the film’s key events. In the midst of
the post-war crime wave, an Old Bailey judge argues that
“one of the best preventives of crime is the regular
uniformed police officer on the beat”. These include
veterans like PC 693 George Dixon, 25 years on the beat
and now attached to Paddington Green, and rookies like PC
Andy Mitchell, who falls for young Monty Green’s trick of
pretending to be lost in order to get taken to the station for
a jam bun. “That’s one thing they couldn’t teach you at Peel
House”, Dixon counsels, “and it won’t be the only thing”.
Unarmed, Dixon confronts the armed delinquent Tom Riley
robbing a cinema; the youth panics and shoots him.
Crashing after a car chase, Riley escapes into White City
Stadium during a race meeting. The management closes the
gates and officers are called in to flush him out of the
crowds. Riley is trapped by a crowd of police and the public,
and is taken away.

The play begins, still in black-and-white and set in the 1940s.

Riley sits smugly in a van with other officers, including PC
“Taff” Hughes, who is nursing a head wound. Given a
cigarette, Riley suggests the coppers show their kids the
matches “touched by Tom Riley, cop killer”. Hughes
restrains himself from hitting him, and Riley sneers: “You
can’t lay so much as a finger on me… I know my rights, see”.
Hughes eulogises his great friend Dixon, who would have
“run to the ends of the earth to uphold any man’s rights.
Even his own murderer”. As the van bumps, Hughes gets a
bit vague and touches his bandages. At the station, young
PC Sneed has his uniform checked by Sgt Brooks, who
hopes he’ll be like Dixon: “Good coppering is more than just
keeping your uniform straight… I can laugh, cry, get angry, PC Hughes and Riley on the journey back from White City stadium (© BBC)
be just as vulnerable as any on the outside. The difference
between them and me is that I can’t let my emotions run Sc
cotlan
nd Yarrd Myste
erie
es”. 1994, Wr: Victoria Wood, Dir: Gavin Millar), and BBC-2's
away with me”. Without “the power of example”, the police edgier Screen Two which launched in 1985 with the brilliant
“might just as well go back to carrying clubs instead of Hearing Dixon’s voice in his head, Hughes is shocked in the Contact (tx: 6th January 1985, wr: Tony Clarke, Dir: Alan
truncheons”. In the interview room, Superintendent changing rooms to see naked men dashing around flicking Clarke) and featured such varied classics as East of Ipswich
Hammond asks for “chummy” Riley to be brought a cup of each other with towels, and to find in his own locker pin-ups (tx: 1st February 1987, Wr: Michael Palin, Dir: Tristram
tea and a jam bun. Hughes and Riley are left alone; Hughes of naked women. He is told that Mrs Hughes has rung, Powell), The Firm (tx: 16th February 1989, Wr: Al Hunter, Dir:
closes the door… saying she’ll “wait up” for him – Hughes thinks this is his Alan Clarke) and Memento Mori (tx: 19th April 1992, Wr: Alan
mother, but it’s his wife (“But I’m a confirmed bachelor!”), Kelley, Jeanie Sims, Jack Clayton, novel: Muriel Spark, Dir:
…at which point the play switches to colour. Something has and he finds a photo of himself with his family. Later, he Jack Clayton). Screenplay was commissioned to break new
changed. There is graffiti on the walls, a radiator and strip catches other PCs beating a confession out of a fat boy in ground in terms of content and production techniques and
lighting. We hear modern-sounding police sirens and ringing a tracksuit. “Want a go?” they ask, “It’s all been cleared”. to employ new talent from film schools and theatre. Head of
telephones, as well as screams. Outside, we track with four Hallucinating Riley’s face, Hughes loses it and kicks the boy Drama Peter Goodchild argued that, without being “self-
pairs of legs as they stride down the corridor and burst into to death. consciously experimental or avant garde”, BBC Drama was
the room. Superintendent Cherry, dressed in a mac and suit, “prepared to fall flat on our faces if necessary in order to
tells Riley that “you’re gonna put your hands up to this one, Riley’s version of events receives short shrift: “you weren’t try something new and inventive… (and) to get as far away
son, or I’ll take your bollocks off with a Stanley knife”. Cut arrested at Stringfellow’s discotheque, you were swamped as possible from the rather static feel of TV plays”.[1] But
to new title sequence: a modern cop show with lots of by five divisions of the Met in collusion with the underworld in the changing Thatcherite economic climate and with a
striding down corridors. One cop takes bribe money from a at White City dog stadium…yeah, and my daughter’s grown burgeoning independent sector, such drama had to be
toilet cistern, and others claim their cut. Flashing graphics a dick”. Cherry is worried he’s trying for a “diminished competitive: “we can produce hours of top quality
identify this new programme: The Filth. responsibility” claim. The police contact Riley’s solicitor - entertainment yet remain within a strict budget - we're
they are having trouble as the number Riley gave was offering about 14 hours of quality TV costing something like
Riley is dragged out into the corridor with his arm twisted disconnected in 1949 - but he is kept waiting while Cherry £150,000 an hour. We've proved we can do it, now it's up
behind his back. In an interview room, he maintains his and Drury try to beat a confession out of Riley and trick him to the independents to do as well and as cheaply”.[2] David
cocky defiance: “What you charging me with anyway, into putting his fingerprints onto the gun barrel, money, M Thompson, one of the strand's originating producers,
Second World War? Well, I weren’t on that job neither”. He drugs and, for good measure, a pirate video of Rambo. recalls that “the idea was to do drama of a different kind…
is charged with Dixon’s murder. Riley and Hughes When his solicitor arrives, he is now ancient and struggling to definitely lower cost... to be more like a guerrilla operation,
experience culture shock - Riley is freaked by computers, breathe (“But he was 45 last week!”). Working on the theory to work with different methods. So we did one drama for
while Hughes asks the police surgeon if a knock on the head that Riley is a “schizoid manic depressive” who believes he’s instance set in South America called Lan nd (tx: 22nd July
could be responsible for hearing policemen swearing, at a cosh boy, Cherry tries to make him believe he’s “part of 1987, Wr: Barry Collins, Dir: David Wheatley), without any
which point his medication is increased. that reality” by pretending to be a copper from that era. costume, make-up or design, which was really radical in
Using the “chump” and “mallarkey” language of the 1940s, those days. We had a cameraman, a director [but] what we
“Good PR, Dixon getting shot like that”, observes Cherry gets him to confess. Sadly, Riley’s solicitor, who has didn't have, unfortunately, was an armourer, in a film about
Hammond, as it would increase recruitment of school been tied to his chair by his scarf to prevent him sliding off bandits… it was nearly a total disaster…In between takes,
leavers: “the training schools’ll be having them in and out it and hurting himself, falls and inadvertantly hangs himself. [the director] had a gun in his hand, it went off, he narrowly
quicker than a pork sword in a knocking shop”. Hammond Looking out of the window at modern London, Riley has a missed his foot. I actually nearly got sacked over this -
clarifies the case: Riley and Murphy robbed a bingo hall breakdown and collapses. Hearing that Riley has had a mild apparently the thing they were most upset over was not the
(formerly a cinema) using “shooters” paid for by proceeds stroke, Hammond asks: “Genuine or one of ours?” absence of the armourer but the absence of the make-up
from an off-licence robbery three days earlier. Tracked Meanwhile, Hughes breaks into the armoury, takes a gun artist, which was thought to be a terrible breach of union
down to a flat, Riley and Murphy escaped in a stolen Fiesta; and goes after Riley (Hammond: “I’m tempted to use the ‘f’ protocol, because we had blood but no make-up artist. So
it crashed at White City as in the original version. The police word…”). we were really pushing the boat out on that level - most
discovered that the flat belonged to Victor Lewis, Riley’s notably in a (very very bold and experimental) film like Rooad
boyfriend. Riley got dressed up as a cosh boy for an Edgar Cherry has the bodies of the youth and Bromley senior (tx: 7th October 1987, Wr: Jim Cartwright, Dir: Alan Clarke).
Lustgarten Night at Stringfellow’s, and was arrested by taken to the cells. Finally the young Bromley, Riley’s modern- There was Carrian ni an
nd the
e Co
ourrte
esan
ns (tx: 5th August 1987,
Hughes, dressed as a 1940s policeman. Cherry ruminates day solicitor, arrives, and threatens to expose the truth Wr/Dir: Leslie Megahey), a film set in Venice all shot in the
on what makes “an old-fashioned PC”: “A man of about Dixon, observing that a jury might see his killing as “a studio in Ealing”.[3] The Trial of Klaus Barbie (tx: BBC-2,
experience, unswerving in his desire to serve the public, favour”. He is slightly distracted by finding the body of his 15th July 1987, Wr: Ray Jenkins) was another landmark,
polite yet chirpy, conciliatory but always ethical, a bastion of father and the fat boy, who turns out to be his son (“Not pieced together during the real-life trial with no fixed studio
moral fibre and a power of example. And then we join the really your night, sir, is it?”) provision even a month earlier; its transmission ten days
Filth”. Sufficient evidence was found at Riley’s flat, after the end of the trial made it according to Goodchild “the
including a sawn-off shotgun barrel. Asked if there are any Hughes tracks down Riley, resulting in a stand-off with fastest-produced drama production ever”.
prints on it, Cherry replies that “there will be”. armed police. Riley tries to talk Hughes into putting the gun
down since, being a copper, he must know “the difference In the wake of Film on Four, many Screen Ones and Screen
Getting Cherry alone, Hammond tells him that Dixon was between them and us”. Hughes panics and shoots him. The Twos had a cinematic afterlife. By comparison, Screenplay,
under an internal investigation, having “got bunged a corridor begins to clear, at which point Bromley arrives and although also featuring filmed plays, was conspicuously a
monkey for turning a blind eye” to a child-swapping party. “If threatens to tell the world about the day’s events. When tear television strand (aided by its off-shoot Screenplay Firsts
word ever crept out that Dixon, our brave bobby on the gas accidentally goes off, Cherry and Drury take advantage (BBC-2, 1987-1993)). Arthur Ellis, who earlier co-wrote
beat, took an unswerving desire to serve the welfare of of the confusion to shoot Bromley and pass the gun onto Christine (tx: 23rd September 1987, Wr: Arthur Ellis and Alan
minors, bang goes our PR”. “Blimey, a case of PC Hughes. With the press provided with a body, “justice will Clarke, Dir: Alan Clarke) for the strand, found himself writing
Paedophile”, mutters Cherry, “I don’t remember this one on have been seen to be done”. As a shoot-out rages in the a more traditional television studio play, of the kind which
corridor outside, Cherry predicts commendations; Drury was being rapidly phased out in favour of film. Echoing the
remarks, “You don’t half pull some strokes, guv’nor”. opportunities which strands had afforded writers in earlier
years, Ellis recalls that producer Brenda Reid “had a 60
Over the end credits, Cherry ponders hypothetically where minute studio tape slot she needed filling and nothing to fill
the modern-day Riley might have ended up. We now see a it with. I wrote up the 2 page premise and, as I recall, within
colour Riley and Hughes in a black-and-white nick. A friendly four days or so, was given the nod by Brenda to write up
PC brings tea and a jam bun and tells Riley that “The DCI the script… The only rule given me was that there could be
will want to grill you”. Riley throws the jam bun away, absolutely no exterior or location filming. The entire thing
replying: “What’s he think I am, a fucking sausage?” had to be shot in the studio. Which was fine by me. It gave
me boundaries, format, discipline and structure, without
Background and Production Details having to think about them… I completed the script within
maybe a month or so”. [4]
Screenplay (BBC-2, 1986-1993) was one of the last strands
within British television dedicated to the single play. Though It’s impossible to appreciate the quality of the play’s themes
single dramas still appear, they now stand alone, due to and ideas without discussing its source text, The Blue Lamp
schedulers’ loss of faith in strand identity, which seems odd (1950). George Dixon (Jack Warner) has come to represent
given their obsession with “stripped” schedules. The public the archetypal British policeman, the “bobby on the beat”
and industry profile of the single play was in steep decline idealised by successive Home Secretaries. Outliving The
by the late 1980s. Where once stood The Wednesday Play Blue Lamp by 26 years - some feat given that he’s killed
(BBC-1, 1964-1970) and Play for Today (BBC-1, 1970- during it - he was resurrected for his own series, Dixon of
1984), now there were two loose umbrella titles, often for Dock Green, which ran from 1955 to 1976, a period during
films: the populist Screen One which started in 1989 and which the screen image of the police fundamentally
Cherry makes Riley an offer he can’t refuse (© BBC) achieved hits like Pat and Margaret (tx: 11th September changed. The Black and Blue Lamp works upon juxtaposing

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The Illustrated Gazette Screenplay: The Black and Blue Lamp
This was reinforced by Dixon of Dock Green, which
relocated Dixon from the real Paddington Green to the
fictional Dock Green. That his return was so successful was
hardly surprising: The Blue Lamp had been 1950’s most
successful film, and won Best British Film, whilst Jack
Warner remained a major star. Making his name in radio
series like Garrison Theatre (BBC, 1939-41), in which his
comic songs on censorship earned him the sobriquet Jack
“Blue Pencil” Warner, he went on to play the father of the
Huggett family in four films from Holiday Camp (1947, Dir:
Ken Annakin) to The Huggetts Abroad (1949, Dir: Ken
Annakin) and in the radio hit Meet the Huggetts (BBC, 1952-
61). He soon became synonymous with policemen, to the
extent that a famous song was reworded “If you want to
know the time, ask Jack Warner”.[9] During the early years
of Dixon he appeared as policemen in such diverse films as
Ealing’s dark comedy The Ladykillers (1955, Dir: Alexander
Mackendrick) and the science-fiction horror The
Quatermass Xperiment (1955, Dir: Val Guest). In 1965, after
Dixon was finally promoted to sergeant, the Queen
presented him with an OBE and told him that she looked on
A play within a play: The Filth (© BBC) Dixon as part of the fabric of Britain. Dixon of Dock Green Drury, Hammond and Cherry ponder the situation (© BBC)
drew large audiences well into the 1970s - even though
the world of Dixon with the more cynical modern portrayals The officers of Z Cars (BBC-1, 1962-78), flawed men who
Dixon had been approaching retirement age back in 1949 –
of the police, in the process demonstrating the lasting smoked on duty and were as likely to commit domestic
and ended in 1976, when Warner was 80 years old.
importance of Dixon as an icon and wittily raising the issue violence as investigate it, were initially promoted as a
of how fictional treatments of the police affect perceptions reaction against Dixon. Director John McGrath insisted that
The series was overseen by Ted Willis, who - ironically, given
of their role in society. the show should have “No slick tie-ups. No reassuring
the dominance of police series in the schedules ever since –
endings, where decency and family life triumph”.[12] Where
was sceptical that he could find enough material to fill six
The Blue Lamp establishes veteran Dixon as Dixon’s officers brought “care” to their own community,
half-hours. He needn’t have worried, as the series ran for
“representative of all policemen throughout the country, changes to social cohesion were reflected in Z Cars’
430 episodes over twenty-two seasons. The first episode,
steady-going, tolerant, unarmed, carrying out a multitude of ‘Newtown’ setting. The series was welcomed by critics as a
P.C. Crawford’s First Pinch (tx: 9th July 1955, Wr: Ted Willis,
duties”.[5] He passes on to PC Andy Mitchell (Jimmy welcome relief from Dixon’s “sugary nonsense” featuring a
Dir: Douglas Moodie), introduces the series as a mid-50s
Hanley) local knowledge gained from years of experience as “too good to be true” copper written by Willis, “the police’s
variation on The Blue Lamp; although borrowing its
a copper both of and from the community, and integrates PRO”.[13] A 14-year-old letter writer stated that “If Dock
structure in Dixon’s assimilation of a rookie P.C. called Andy
Mitchell into inter-related families: Dixon’s own family Green is authentic I am not surprised at the high crime rate
into the police family, it also introduces us to Dixon’s
(replacing Dixon’s dead son), and the occupational family of in this country”.[14] And yet, the series remained popular,
daughter, whom Andy will soon marry. Displacing the
the police, which with its choir, darts team and camaraderie precisely because of its style and setting. The series did
psychological tension and post-war symbolism of the
is “repetitively signified as being loosely integrated within the have a core of research; Willis based Dixon on a P.C. that he
Dixons’ dead son, Mary is a homely daughter offering a
wider community”.[6] In this community and the police met at Leman Street Police Station while researching The
more literal marriage into the family. The series remains
service, to quote a song sung by Dixon and repeated by the Blue Lamp, and years later reiterated that if you “go into
evocative, with its opening sequence ripe for nostalgia – the
80s Hughes, “all” is “correct”. But this society is under any London police station… you will find a Dixon”.[15]
blue lamp of the police station, the whistled theme (initially
threat from a crime wave, personified in Riley (Dirk Before each series, Willis would visit Scotland Yard’s Public
“Maybe It’s Because I’m A Londoner”, later “An Ordinary
Bogarde), a young delinquent excluded from the film’s Relations Officer, who “outlines the main points they would
Copper”), the to-camera introduction (“Evenin’ all”) and
normalised society. Unlike Mitchell, Riley fails to join an like to put over. He doesn’t interfere with the programme in
conclusion by Dixon, as the demands of episodic drama for
occupational family, as the criminal underworld rejects him any way, but he mentions such things as ‘can you put in a
narrative resolution led to the replication each week of the
for lacking the “code, experience and self-discipline of the bit about locking your car when you leave it?’… This advice
film’s sense of all returning to normal. This device was
professional thief”. The juxtaposition between them is keeps things topical”.[16] Its take on the “police procedural”
quoted in Ben Elton’s sitcom The Thin Blue Line (tx: BBC1,
reinforced by editing, as in a cut from Mitchell shining a series represents a purity for which later series, notably The
1995-1996), with Rowan Atkinson’s quaintly anachronistic
torch to Hanley lighting a cigarette, on their respective night Bill (ITV, 1983-present) in its first decade, have strived. In its
copper affectionately satirising Dixon (at one point
beats around contrasting London streets - Riley’s being the own way, Dixon was innovative, as Ted Willis sought “to
reprimanding armed robbers with the line “I’ve never seen
jazz-scored neon-lit underworld. The film cuts between break away from the accepted formula for police and crime
such naughtiness”). This is the stereotypical view, that times
Dixon, his wife and Andy in their respectable working-class stories. Dixon couldn’t be Dixon in a programme which was
changed but Dixon didn’t, remaining an old-fashioned
house to the squalid flat in which we find Riley, his girlfriend full of wailing sirens, screeching brakes, gun fights… The
promoter of family values, with the show becoming “an
Diana and associate Spud. The Dixon family, including average policeman might go through a life-time of service
anachronism, and a dangerously naïve one at that”.[10] Its
visiting colleagues, are filmed in a placid cinematic style, as without being involved in one murder-case. His life is one of
representations of race have certainly dated – take Dixon’s
if we too are sitting contentedly round the table with them. routine… Would [viewers] take simple, human stories about
unmasking of an Eastern religious guru as a blacked-up
By contrast, Riley, Diana and Spud argue in compositions a simple ordinary copper and the people he meets?”[17] It
white conman in Bangles, Baubles and Beads (tx: 15th
stressing their disunity, each seeking dominance in the would be ironic to attack the show now given the popularity
March 1975, Wr: Derek Ingrey, Dir: Joe Waters) - as has
frame, and stylised camera angles which almost of Heartbeat (ITV, 1992-present), a quiet, primetime family
Dixon’s attitude to domestic violence. In The Blue Lamp, he
expressionistically show this as an off-balance world. drama set around an idealised representation of old-
laughed at Mitchell hurrying to an incident because the
fashioned police (though its period detail and pop music
husband “don’t kill his old woman off too quick as a rule”;
These two worlds come into conflict in the film’s pivotal make it a consciously nostalgic package, apparently
and in the Dixon episode Pound of Flesh (tx: 25th August
scene, around halfway through, when Riley shoots Dixon. signifying that people wouldn’t accept that the police are
1956, Wr: Ted Willis, Dir: Douglas Moodie) observed that “if I
What’s striking is the powerlessness of the armed man, who like this now).
arrested every bloke in Dock Green who clocked his wife,
commits the cardinal sin in British cinema of losing control I’d be working overtime”.
(the rest of the film shows him to be sexually charged). His Though The Sweeney (ITV, 1974-78) is often described as
own accomplices scream and call him a “maniac”, and as the smashing up Dixon’s cosy world, this ignores the anomaly
The BBC’s archive holdings demonstrate how transitory
getaway car careers around the streets, the subtext is clear: that Dixon of Dock Green survived into this era (with Dixon
Dixon of Dock Green was expected to be - only 43 episodes
the policeman’s enemy is a danger to us. After this we see a desk sergeant and Andy Crawford with CID involved with
still exist, and only 5 of these are from its 50s peak. But the
the controlled professionalism of the police, in a semi- “shooters” and “blags”). There is also a fundamental
series remains interesting, not least for its longevity, as it
documentary montage of police procedure as they process connection between the two. Arthur Ellis: “in the mid 70s,
“has reflected changes in society, in attitudes to the police,
the information, which shows order restored - they will trace when Jack Warner was about 200 years old… the idea of a
and in the police forces themselves”.[11] Also, the series
the threat for us. Dixon’s sacrifice is good propaganda, decent beat copper was supplanted by John Thaw’s
does comment on its own worldview. In The Roaring Boy (tx:
reminiscent of the death of a fireman in Fires Were Started Regan, who was a tad more aggressive in his pursuit of
18th August 1956, Wr: Ted Willis, Dir: Douglas Moodie), Dixon
(1943, Dir: Humphrey Jennings), requested by the Ministry criminal scum - aggressive, but non bent - pretty much an
is held hostage by an armed man who sneers at Dixon’s
of Information to show the sacrifices needed to defeat Nazi updated version of Barlow. The interesting thing was, both
daughter marrying a cop because “you lot stick together
Germany. Dixon may be the lead character, but “The real series, requiring cops as heroes, played into the hands of
closer than ants”, and rejects Dixon’s paternalism, snapping
hero of the piece, in fact, is the police force”.[7] The Blue the Met, in terms of PR… The only variant was that The e
at his repeated use of the term “son”. Of particular interest
Lamp was made with the unprecedented support of the Swe eeney, cashing in on what was happening all around it in
are episodes that discuss the possibility of police corruption
Metropolitan Police (who warmly welcomed it at a time when films, romanticised screen violence, which gave the Met a
or incompetence. The Late Customer (tx: 4th December
they were developing new public relations strategies), and is nice tough little image that invariably helped them employ it”.
1965, Wr: Gerald Kelsey, Dir: G.B. Lupino) looks at the
dedicated to them. Of far more consequence was Law and Order (BBC-2, 6th
possible conviction of an innocent man, while in Firearms
- 27th April 1978). Written by G.F. Newman, “a graduate of
Were Issued (tx: 20th April 1974, Wr: N.J. Crisp, Dir: Vere
The collision between Dixon and Riley is particularly the ‘all coppers are bastards’ school”, Law and Order’s
Lorrimer), the CID are investigated after shooting an
effective because they represent conflicting aspects of brutal and corrupt characters “made The e Sweeeney look like
unarmed criminal with a gun issued by Dixon. As in The Blue
post-war society. The Blue Lamp shares the core Lamp, crises close with the resolution of the status quo; the
boy scouts”.[18] Far from Dixon’s “one bad apple”, Newman
perceptions of Britishness delineated in comedies made by believed that “the person who becomes a policeman has
latter episode ends with Dixon’s complacent statement that
the same studio, Ealing: a belief in community and tradition, almost exactly the same pathology as the criminal”.[19]
“I think I’d’ve done the same… in those circumstances.
stoicism and stability.[8] This was heightened by the Goodnight all”. The earliest surviving episode, The Rotten
allocation of the screenplay to T.E.B. Clarke, author of key In The Black and Blue Lamp, Arthur Ellis confronts the 1949
Apple (tx: 11th August 1956, Wr: Ted Willis, Dir: Douglas
Ealing comedies; The Blue Lamp and Dixon’s character had Tom Riley with this breed of copper, charting the changing
Moodie), shows Dixon angrily confronting Paul Eddington’s
been developed by Jan Read and the writer often viewed perceptions of the police in the media and society. Ellis was
corrupt PC: “There’s nothing worse than a rotten copper…
as his sole creator, Ted Willis. Dixon is a reassuring figure, friendly with Newman, and an admirer of his Terry Sneed
the lowest thing that crawls on God’s Earth”. That the
representing the normative qualities of a nation to be novels which began with Sir, You Bastard, which “entirely
miscreant is the rotten apple in the barrel, separate from the
returned to after wartime upheaval. This is reflected changed the perception of how the police operated. They
police as an institution, is shown symbolically in Dixon’s
structurally: we are given a sense of community, it is also had a high influence on officers themselves, who for
refusal to arrest him until he has removed his uniform, and
threatened by an outsider, and then, as the community re- the first time saw themselves written about as in fact they
is then reinforced by Dixon’s closing speech: “that was the
asserts itself, all returns to normal (which also happens, with would like to be perceived… [meeting a cop a few years
only bad copper I ever met… the police have to build on
a very different effect, in The Black and Blue Lamp). This later, he said that] a few years back the books, though
trust… when we find a bad ‘un we’re down on him like a ton
is related to the police in the repetition of images from the fiction, were documenting procedure and lingo, now the
of bricks”. He may not have been “the only bad copper” on
start of the film at its end: a blue lamp outside a police lingo was being adopted by the incoming cops. Fiction was
duty in the 50s, but he was certainly a rare sight on
station, and Mitchell giving the same directions to a member influencing fact”. Law and Order in turn “completely
television.
of the public that Dixon gave at the start - one generation changed the way TV looked at cops, with an authority that
takes over from another, but continues its values. Dixon’s had no basis in The e Sweeeney’s romantic and Met friendly
killer is equally the product of war. A voice-over describes propaganda. Naturally enough The Police Federation and
Diana as “showing the effect of a childhood spent in a home the police in general loathed the series and demanded
broken and demoralised by war”, producing delinquents redress”
“responsible for the post-war increase in crime”. However,
the idea that war has caused social dislocation is After The Blue Lamp sequence (Ellis would now “compress
underplayed, and must be placed in the context of Riley’s all the clips from it at the beginning, because it’s way too
capture at White City. The dangerous loner is repelled by the long”), The Black and Blue Lamp enters borderline
community, including the criminal underworld. Consensus is telefantasy territory as, in a joyously unexplained switch,
therefore rooted in wartime rhetoric - it’s another menace Riley and Hughes end up in a 1980s police station. The
that we can defeat together, if we stoically overcome credits for The Filth are the play’s third title sequence, after
traumatic losses. After his death, Dixon’s absence those of The Black and Blue Lamp and The Blue Lamp,
dominates the film. A sense of lost fathers works its way which adds to the sense that what we are looking at are,
through the film (an auteurist critic might point out here that above all, representations (the melancholy music over the
director Basil Dearden lost his own father as a child during end credits recalls the memorable end credits of The
the First World War): Mitchell finds a surrogate father, Riley Sweeney). Riley and Hughes have replaced 80s versions of
doesn’t (arguably, he kills him, refusing to give up his gun as Riley and Hughes, after the murder of an 80s version of
Dixon asks - and psychoanalytical critics would have a field Dixon. The Blue Lamp is affectionately satirised - Cherry
day with the phallic way Bogarde handles the gun in later takes one look at the Bogarde character and asks, “Is that
scenes). The association of the police with paternalism is the presence of a hardened criminal? He looks like he’s just
part of the film’s representation of the police which has come out of RADA”. Hammond sneers: “Twenty-five years
retained its symbolic potency. a pissing woodentop and old George still didn’t learn
anything… you wouldn’t catch me trying to win an award
Riley wipes the in-ttray off his face (© BBC)

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Screenplay: The Black and Blue Lamp The Illustrated Gazette
(Associated Rediffusion, 1959-1967) etc – the facts of
police corruption were entirely unmentionable, allowing
police corruption to thrive with absolutely no scrutiny until
the issue was raised in the Kray and Richardson trials, and
only followed through a few years later, exploding with
Humphries and, ironically, his Flying Squad Soho porn jiffy
bag collections. And at that time, retirement with full
pension intact, prior to any trial, was de rigeur. The crime
wasn’t being bent, it was being caught being bent”. Viewing
the ending of Dixon episode The Rotten Apple with this in
mind, Dixon’s anger at the corrupt officer, and subsequent
disclaimer, feel slightly more sinister. In The Black and Blue
Lamp, George Dixon is eulogised by a character suffering
from concussion, lending his whole representation the aura
of a deluded daydream. As one critic wrote of the film at the
time, Dixon and Mitchell were not “policemen as they really
are but policemen as an indulgent tradition has chosen to
think they are”.[27]

Dixon-style “soft” policing has become a term of abuse in

police circles, but the potency of the Dixon myth remains.
Roger Graef, noted for his fly-on-the-wall documentaries
Police (tx: BBC-1, 4th January – 15th March 1982) and
Police 2001 (tx: BBC-2, 25th November 2001), has argued
that, although Dixon may not have existed literally, “a trust
between police and their community did… Affection for
Dixon’s avuncular persona reflected approval of the police
by a huge majority of postwar Britain”.[28] Steve Chibnall
casts doubt on the nature of the public’s acceptance of
Dixon: “it would be naïve to suppose that the Dixon image
was embraced as a realistic representation of the
policeman, rather than a romantic idea of what he should be
like”.[29] The police remain a core social myth, and such
representations will always outnumber counter-myths. Like
Law and Order before it, The Black and Blue Lamp
attracted the ire of the police (see Ellis above), and neither
programme has ever been repeated or sold abroad. This
contrasts with the popularity within the force not only of
Dixon (after Warner’s death in 1981, his coffin was borne by
Paddington Green officers) but also of The Sweeney’s
Regan and Carter, who as Ellis indicates were great PR at a
time when the Police Federation sought a “law and order”
platform. Despite stylistic and tonal shifts in police dramas,
PC Hughes and Riley close the door, and the world changes... (© BBC) “the dominant myths of the British police retain core (‘caring’
and ‘humane’) values which do not change”.[30] Tracing a
with some wanker aiming a twelve-gauge at my meat-and- the time-travel of language so that the chump, chummy, “dialectical progression” in the politics of policing, Robert
two-veg”. Indeed, it’s no coincidence that one of the first mug, mullarkey of Tom Riley met the blag, monkeys, Reiner argues that Dixon of Dock Green represents the
lines is “Dixon. Isn’t anything sacred?” The comment that shooters and copy-cat Rambos of Supt Cherry and Sgt “thesis”, presenting the police “primarily as carers, lightning
Dixon’s killing is “good PR” for Hendon is reminiscent of The Hammond”.[21] Turning wearily from a conversation about a rods for the postwar consensus climate”; that The Sweeney
Blue Lamp’s origins as police propaganda - as Dearden’s “fag blag”, Hammond observes that when he retires he’ll be is the “antithesis”, presenting the police “primarily as
collaborator Michael Relph said, The Blue Lamp was “more happy to put this “CID semaphore behind me. Janet hasn’t controllers”; and that The Bill represents the “synthesis”,
an animated recruitment poster than an analysis of youthful understood a word I’ve been saying for twenty years”. suggesting that “care and control are interdependent”.[31]
crime”.[20] Worse still are the unsavoury allegations which Meanwhile, Riley is beaten up after not knowing what a This core notion of community “carer” policing
Dixon’s murder saved him from. Ellis admits that “I was “blag” is, while Hughes is shocked by hearing policemen demonstrates that, even now, when public trust in
expecting flak from Ted Willis, creator of Dixon, for “using rude words”. The sense you’re left with is that The institutions has collapsed into cynicism, the ideal
suggesting his character was involved in child swapping Blue Lamp, Dixon of Dock Green and the programmes that represented by George Dixon remains attractive.
parties. But not a word from him. However, The Police The Filth is based on have tricky relationships with their
Federation came out vehemently against the play via a full times. Ellis’s script superbly incorporates such ambitious themes
page Daily Mail article, even though they hadn’t then seen it. within a darkly entertaining and knowing structure. He
Thousand and thousands of pro police TV hours, and they Equally, The Blue Lamp itself isn’t afraid to satirise its own recalls that he “had a lot of fun writing it… The general
resent the occasional hour going the other way”. vision of consensus - a robbery victim who tries to hide his approach to writing it was to try to get laughs from credibly
identity because he is with his mistress is frustrated by twisted situations. Parody certainly plays an element, but I
The Black and Blue Lamp isn’t just a modern spoof (Ellis interfering busybodies who swarm around to help or to ring wanted more to get the feel of a farce, with an increasing
“loved The Blue Lamp”) but a brilliant inversion of its source 999, and a driver berates Mitchell for stopping her for a number of bodies”. Ralph Brown recalls that the cast “all
film, with Riley carrying Forties values into a view of the petty violation when there’s a cop killer on the loose. Far had the utmost respect for the script”, and that Ellis was “a
police which is just as mythologised as Dixon’s cosy world. from being a consensual nation with the occasional true original”, with whom he later worked in Ellis’s full-length
The scene in which Hughes confronts Riley directly quotes dangerous loner, Britain was suffering a crime wave. As has directorial debut (after several highly-respected short films)
from the scene in The Blue Lamp in which Riley shoots been recently documented, that most mythologised of Don’t Get Me Started (1994, aka Psychotherapy).[32] It
Dixon, but this time the unarmed villain tries to talk the consensual eras, the Second World War, was in fact plagued would be hard to mess up such a script, but the at-times
policeman down. Their dialogue is the same, and when Riley by robbery, rape and murder, from such relatively famous lightweight production tries its best. Ellis himself “felt
is shot, Sean Chapman even captures Jack Warner’s facial figures as John George Haig and ‘Chicago Joe and the despondent” and “loathed the final version”, whilst
expression as he falls. Given that the dialogue reverberating Showgirl’ to innumerable unsolved cases.[22] Furthermore, generously admitting that, like most writers, “All I see is what
in Taff’s head is a surprisingly harsh line from The Blue The Blue Lamp was inspired by a real-life killing, that of P.C. it might or could have been”. Ellis puts his finger on it by
Lamp - “We’re onto the bastard that shot George Dixon” - it Nat Edgar by the 22-year-old army deserter Donald pointing out that the director had “played all the laughs way
has an eerie sense of 1940s coppers acting out vengeful Thomas. Following the 1948 Criminal Justice Act, Thomas too loudly. Like a rag revue”, over-playing “like Basil Brush”
impulses which that film could not represent. By this stage was not hung, a decision that angered the police and rather than under-playing as the script required. Ralph
in the play, “the difference between them and us” has gone, indirectly led, according to David Yallop and others, to the Brown argues that the cast “felt we were over-directed.
and the play implicates the act of representation in this. hanging of the young and innocent “delinquent” Derek Every beat, every minuscule reaction was choreographed
After all, it is Hughes who commits the worst atrocities in an Bentley in 1952, one of many miscarriages of justice that and had the juice almost squeezed out of it by the director…
identity crisis caused by discovering that he “was not the were not a part of George Dixon’s world.[23] A Royal All the cast were very instinctive TV actors and didn’t need
affable beat bobby he was back in the late 40s”, and by Commission was set up in 1960 after bribery and corruption this kind of mollycoddling”. Arthur Ellis describes the
being corrupted by this mode of representation. (That the scandals emerged. Later, Leeds detectives were found to director as a “safe” choice meant “to soften it all up”. It’s
80s Hughes is “irredeemably bent” had been made even be involved in a child porn ring. Meanwhile, the famously hard to disagree, particularly given the musical score - for
clearer the first draft, in a scene in which his wife visits him hard-working and much-commended Detective Sergeant instance the cute sting which accompanies the Dixon
at the station “to ask for more money to pay off her Harold Challenor was investigated under the 1964 Police revelations - and moments at which the tone is allowed to
innumerable debts and the rental of Taffy’s splash pad – a Act for his overzealous policing techniques (not least slip. Ellis particularly hated “the graphic close-up of the
rented room where Taffy (in his post modern existence) had fabricating evidence and attacking prisoners), finally pencil up the boy’s nose… being lingered on as if the director
sex with a variety of young boys and girls, and stashed his suspended in February 1965. Joe Orton, reportedly was saying ‘look how brave I am to show this’”. Sean
graft… The scene was cut due to Brenda not wanting me to obsessed by Challenor, used him as the basis for Inspector Chapman also bemoans the “lack of variation in visual
present the only female in the story as a leech… [and by me Truscott in his 1966 play Loot, borrowing the line Challenor mood” and the “rather dull unsympathetic lighting plot”, and
wanting] to make the entire play a male arena”. Another is reputed to have said to a protestor at a royal visit: “You’re argues that “the black and white sequence at the beginning
element which was “watered down, though still in the script fucking nicked, my old beauty” (later repeated by Monty of the play is too flat, it’s simply shot on a studio camera
somewhere, was the fact that Taffy’s father was, as a Python’s Life of Brian).[24] Orton argued that “it’s very with the colour button turned down, which lacks the grainy,
young man, at Rourke’s Drift (see Zulu (1963, Dir: Cy unhealthy for a society to love the police the way the pseudo cinema-verite atmosphere of the original film”, which
Endfield)), and though discovering proof of his own English do… When you have that kind of affection for “compromises one of the essential premises of the piece”.
corruption, needed to believe himself more heroic and authority, you begin to have the makings of a police state”. As a result of all this there were what might be described as
courageous than the slowly revealing facts were telling In the published version of Loot, Orton uses an epigram creative differences; Ellis recalls that he “was banned from
him… he saw himself as a VC winning soldier (with John from George Bernard Shaw’s Misalliance: “Anarchism is a the read throughs, and at one stage threatened, impotently
Barry’s Zulu score written into the script), just like his old game at which the police can beat you”.[25] Sean Chapman I might add, to chuck him out of the TV Centre 5th floor
man, and not as the corrupt character”. picked up on this, eulogising the “sheer, delicious mania of window”.
Arthur’s script, which struck me as a brilliant post
The play revolves around the collision of conventions of set ‘Ortonesque’ statement about the disparity between the Ellis was, however, happy with most of the casting:
design, costume (Cherry’s wardrobe contains a row of Official, sanctified face of Policing and the actual “Originally I had wanted George Sewell [for Cranham’s part]
identical macs) and, particularly, dialogue. As Mark Lawson reality”.[26] In the 1980s, the “them and us” relationship but he was up for Do octo
or Whoo (Remembrance of the
wrote, Ellis “was alert to a war of words”, and “delighted in between the public and the police was worsened by their
deployment as state troops during inner city riots and the
miners’ strike. Chapman observes that the play “was written
against a recent background of Police catastrophes such as
the battles at Broadwater Farm, the Miner’s Strike/
Orgreave and the emerging scandal of the Guildford Four.
The exposure of corruption in the West Midlands Special
Branch was shortly to make the action in The e Blac ck an
nd
Bluee Lam mp all too plausible”. Far from television changing
public perceptions of the police, the media have arguably
just got around to reporting incidents that could not be
reported in Dixon’s heyday.

“One of the things that’s interesting about The

e Blue
e Lammp”,
writes Arthur Ellis, “is that its certain authenticity –
procedure, location filming etc – is sponsored in a credit at
the opening of the film by the then Scotland Yard
Commissioner, Harold Scott. Naturally enough, part of the
deal (implicit) for Scotland Yard’s help would have been a
script that showed his men in a good light… In no small way,
because of TV and film’s portrayal of probitious cops who
always get their man, rampant on UK TV through the 60s –
Cherry tries to defuse the situation (© BBC) Gideeon’s Way (ATV, 1964-1965), No o Hidinng Plac ce PC Hughes loses control and kills a witness (© BBC)

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The Illustrated Gazette Screenplay: The Black and Blue Lamp
the corridors and remember when the offices were full of Postwar British Film Culture, Flicks Books,
writers and producers free to commission and develop Trowbridge, 1997, p. 139.
almost at will. There was an atmosphere of purpose; of [6] Chibnall, ‘The teenage trilogy…’, p. 140.
constructive debate and critical analysis wholly missing from [7] Dilys Powell, ‘The Blue Lamp’, January 1950,
current broadcast drama… It’s already difficult to credit just reproduced in The Golden Screen: Fifty Years of
how much more antagonistic Television Drama and indeed Films, Pavilion Books Limited, London, 1990 edition,
almost all creative media at the time were to the prevailing p. 87.
status quo”. [8] This is developed by Charles Barr in Ealing Studios,
Cameron & Tayleur, London, 1980.
Archive Details [9] ‘P.C. Warner’, Radio Times, 1st June 1956, p. 7.
[10] Paul Cornell, Martin Day, Keith Topping, ‘Dixon of
The Black and Blue Lamp exists at the BBC Film and Dock Green’, The Guinness Book of Classic British
Television Library as 1" tape, D3 backup, VideoCD and TV, Guinness Publishing, Enfield, 1996, 2nd edition, p.
timecoded viewing VHS, all at the same duration of 58'43". 217.
[11] Jack Waterman, The Listener, 15th April 1976,
Cast quoted in Geoffrey Hurd, ‘The Television Presentation
of the Police’, Tony Bennett, Susan Boyd-Bowman,
Supt. Cherry ...........................................Kenneth Cranham Colin Mercer, Janet Woollacott (editors), Popular
PC Hughes .....................................................Karl Johnson Television and Film, British Film Institute, London,
Tom Riley ....................................................Sean Chapman 1981, p. 53. Also anthologised in Simon Holdaway
Supt. Hammond...........................................John Woodvine (editor), The British Police, Edward Arnold, London,
Hughes and Riley are offered tea and a jam bun (© BBC) Insp. Drury ......................................................Ralph Brown 1979.
Sgt. Brooks ....................................................Nick Stringer [12] John McGrath, ‘TV Drama: The Case Against
Daleks, tx: 5th to 26th October 1988, Wr: Ben Aaronovitch, PC Sneed...................................................Peter Lovstrom Naturalism’, Sight and Sound, volume 46, number 2,
Dir: Andrew Morgan) and because that show paid out PC Totley ..........................................................Ian Brimble Spring 1977, p. 103.
residuals in foreign sales, he went for that – knowing our Insp. Rogers ..................................................Barry Woolgar [13] Frederick Laws, The Listener, 18th January 1962,
play wouldn’t get a repeat. Also, he didn’t particularly want Police Surgeon .............................................Garrick Hagon p.145 and Derek Hill, The Listener, 3rd May 1962,
to play a cop again, even though he’d be playing against his Mr. Bromley junior ........................................Anthony Smee quoted in Stuart Laing, ‘Banging in Some Reality: The
former image, primarily Spe ecial Brran
nch (Thames, 1969- Mr. Bromley senior ...........................................Paddy Ryan Original Z Cars’, John Corner (editor), Popular
1974)… Ray Winstone came along for the part Ralph Brown Fat Boy.....................................................Jonathan Chater Television in Britain, British Film Institute, London,
played. Good man, but at that time had too much of a Voice overs .....................................................Kathy Burke 1991, pp. 130-1.
violent image, and Ralph, though the part was small, was .............................................................Christopher Driscoll [14] Jane Halton, letters column, Radio Times, 29th March
required to listen well with his eyes. Having caught Withnnail Walkons ........................................................Ian Bodenham 1962, quoted in Laing, ‘Banging In Some Reality’, p.
& I (1986, Dir: Bruce Robinson), I was only too glad he came ................................................................Derek Van Wenan 131.
on board. John Woodvine was good, as were the rest of the .................................................................James Clements [15] Ted Willis, The Listener, 17th May 1962, p.787,
cast, particularly the doctor, who I liked, and of course .....................................................................Frank Glowski quoted in Laing, ‘Banging in Some Reality’, p. 131.
Sean, who was first choice as Riley, and solid”. Chapman ......................................................................Colin Baldwin [16] Ted Willis, ‘Just an Ordinary Copper’, Radio Times,
came to the play having played the lead Danny in the earlier ......................................................................James Durdy 27th November 1959, p. 7.
Screenplay production No Further Cause for Concern (tx: ........................................................................Danny Boyd [17] Ted Willis, ‘George Dixon of Dock Green is Back’,
13th July 1988, Wr: Rib Davies, Dr: John Bruce), as well as ...........................................................Peter Gates Fleming Radio Times, 4th January 1957, p. 5.
Contact (tx: 6th January 1985, Wr: A.F.N. Clarke, Dir: Alan Supporting Artists .........................................Rodney Hood [18] Cornell, Day, Topping, ‘G.F. Newman’, Guinness Book,
Clarke). “It was possible” in this period, Chapman recalls, ..................................................Paul Teague, Steve Amber p. 405.
“for an actor working in television to play Paratroopers, .......................................................................Bob Appleby [19] G.F. Newman, 1993 interview, quoted in Cornell, Day,
Prison Lifers and retro ‘Cosh’ boys all within a few years, .................................................................David Melbourne Topping, ‘G.F. Newman’, p. 405.
and to feel that the work was a real contribution to ...........................................................Ian Johns, Alan Crisp [20] Chibnall, ‘The teenage trilogy’, p. 137.
contemporary culture and its analysis”. ........................................................................David Duffy [21] Mark Lawson, ‘From Bobby to Old Bill’, The
....................................................................Richard Baron Independent, 8th September 1988, p. 14.
The coda is such a treat, and the last line so wonderfully .........................................................Ravindir Singh Reyatt [22] Studies include Angus Calder, The Myth of the Blitz;
right, that it’s unthinkable that Ellis heard - not from Stuart Hylton, Their Darkest Hour; and Secret
producer or director - “that they had decided to cut the final Crew History: Wartime Crime (tx: Channel 4, 6th September
scene, in particular the line of dialogue, ‘What’s he think I 2001).
am, a fucking sausage’. Though the one ‘fucking’ had been Written by ..........................................................Arthur Ellis [23] See for instance David Yallop’s investigation of the
in it all along, for some reason they felt the play would be Director ..............................................................Guy Slater Craig-Bentley case, To Encourage the Others, W.H.
better without it, failing to take into account that the last Producer .........................................................Brenda Reid Allen, London, 1971.
scene offered an insight into the parallel world that might Script Editor .....................................................Jill Raistrick [24] See Joe Orton, Loot, in The Complete Plays,
have occurred in reverse… It was only through the Designer .......................................................Michael Young Methuen, London, 1976.
intervention of Michael Winner, and by default Private Eye Production Associate ..................................Geoffrey Paget [25] John Lahr, Prick Up Your Ears, Allen Lane, London,
magazine, that the scene was pressured to remain”. Result. Lighting Director ................................................Alan Horne 1978, pp. 236-238.
Sound Supervisor ........................................Richard Chubb [26] This and subsequent quotations taken from a letter
Transmission Details Videotape Editor ............................................Peter Reason to the editor from Sean Chapman.
Costume Designer ....................................Christine Rawlins [27] The Times, 20 January 1950, p.8, quoted in Clive
The Black and Blue Lamp was transmitted on BBC-2 Make-Up Designer ............................................Pauline Cox Emsley, ‘The English Bobby: An Indulgent Tradition’,
between 21:27:37pm and 22.26:19pm on Wednesday, 7th Studio Camera Supervisor ............................Rodney Taylor Roy Porter (editor), Myths of the English, Polity Press,
September 1988. A trail had earlier been shown between Vision Mixer .................................................Shirley Coward Cambridge, 1992, p.114.
08:10:26pm and 08:11:11pm. It was the eighth play in the Technical Co-Ordinator...................................Tony Mutimer [28] Roger Graef, ‘Whose Side Are You On?’, The
third season of the Screenplay strand. Video Effects...................................................Ian Simpson Guardian, Weekend, 24th November 2001, p. 45.
Visual Effects Designer ...................................Steve Lucas [29] Chibnall, ‘The teenage trilogy…’, p. 139.
Radio Times provided only a bare listing: “In 1949 Tom Riley Graphics Designer ........................................John Salisbury [30] John Tulloch, Television Drama: Agency, Audience and
is arrested for the murder of PC George Dixon. As he Properties Buyer ..............................................Celia Bobak Myth, Routledge, London, 1990, p. 7.
awaits interrogation at the station he is mysteriously Assistant Floor Managers ................................Jane Cossey [31] Robert Reiner, ‘The Dialectics of Dixon: The Changing
transported into an episode of The Filth – a 1988 police ................................................................Stewart Edwards Image of the TV Cop’, Mike Stephens and Saul
series where the hard men rule. This black comedy Production Assistant ....................................Glenys Williams Becker (editors), Police Force, Police Service,
questions whether the police have changed or the way film Production Manager ................................Ruth S. Mayorcas MacMillan, Basingstoke, 1994, p. 20.
and television present them”. Mysteriously, their credits Fight Arranger............................................Malcolm Ranson [32] This and subsequent quotations taken from a letter
didn’t list Arthur Ellis at all. to the editor by Ralph Brown.
Production Information [33] Mark Lawson, ‘From Bobby to Old Bill’.
The reviews, some of which I have already quoted from, Project Number ..........................................1/LDP/M 776 D [34] Peter Waymark, ‘An arresting contrast’, The Times,
were largely excellent. Mark Lawson called this “a cracking Camera Rehearsals ........................18th to 21st April 1988 7th September 1988, p. 19.
play” and “a velvety black comedy”, and praised Kenneth Camera Recording..........................18th to 21st April 1988 [35] Peter Lennon, ‘In the nick of time’, The Stage and
Cranham and John Woodvine, for playing their parts “like Duration....................................................................58’43” Television Today, 15th September 1988, p. 47.
glorious anti-auditions for The e Bill”.[33] Peter Waymark was Studio ......................................................Television Centre
less impressed: “I suspect there was serious intent… but it Recording Format..................................625 line 1” VT with ooOoo
ends up like a Monty Python sketch which has outstayed its .................................................monochrome 35mm inserts
welcome… There are many good jokes in The e Blac
ck an nd Archive Format ...............1” tape, D3 backup, VideoCD and Warm thanks to the following for their invaluable
Blue e Lam
mp but in the end they defeat their purpose. If the ......................................................timecoded viewing VHS contributions to this article: Arthur Ellis (written memoir,
modern segment is supposed to be a parody of The e Bill… it March 2002), David M Thompson (interview, BBC Films,
is not a very subtle one”.[34] But Peter Lennon loved it, and Film Sequences Used Mortimer Street, London, 7th November 2002), Sean
put the play in its true context: “T.E.B. Clarke and Basil o 04’25” excerpts from The Blue Lamp (Licensor: Chapman (letter, November 2003) and Ralph Brown (letter,
Dearden’s 84 minutes of goody-goody law and order was Weintraub Entertainment, Elstree) December 2003). Continued gratitude goes to Erin O’ Neill
the lace curtain behind which bent coppers went about their at BBC Written Archives for paperwork, to Nick Cooper for
felonious little affairs for more than 20 years… Arthur Ellis’s Music Listed as Used advice, and to the editor for his hard work. Some of the
witty and cunningly crafted video play landed at a moment o Incidental music (31 pieces) composed by Ken research was conducted for a conference paper I
when many of us must be weary of the relentless, Howard: Played by 17 ad hoc musicians conducted presented at Leeds University on 7th April 2002, “The
mechanistic recording of law enforcement barbarity, by Mark Warman, and recorded at Lansdowne afterlife of P.C. George Dixon: from The Blue Lamp to The
particularly since this element has quite lost its moral force”. Recording Studios on 30th August 1988. Black and Blue Lamp”, bits of which are reproduced here.
Though “farcical”, the play was “more than burlesque”. “It o Yes, No, Interlude, composed by P. Pyle:
stirred regret for the old days, along with a proper perplexity Virgin=V=2030 – Scene 1: page 1. The Rotters Club: The
e Blacck an nd Blue
e Lammp script © Arthur Ellis 1987, 2004
about the gulf between the two images that we have Side 1 track 5: Hatfield and the North, 00'35” Thee Blacck annd Bluee Lam
mp production © BBC 1987, 2004
accepted about the police… How true was the image of the o I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles, composed by This article © Dave Rolinson, 2004. No reprinting allowed
kindly, honest, reliable copper? He certainly existed for Brovin/Kellett – Scene 16: whistled by actor as part without express permission.
many - those who were not slum kids or blacks or Chinese, of dramatic action, 00'05” Copyright remains with the copyright holders and this
or poor European foreigners, or labouring Irishmen, or East o When The Red, Red Robin Comes Bobbin Along, article and review is written and compiled in private
End Jews, etc. But has this Bobby totally vanished? Myths composed by Harry Woods – Scene 36: whistled by study, classified under the Copyright Designs and
have a powerful force, and while the old myth of courtesy actor as part of dramatic action, 00’14” Patents Act 1988 as "Fair Dealing".
and scrupulous fairness still prevailed, perhaps most
coppers had to conform to it. But when it was loosened, the Footnotes
Bobby had, again for conformity’s sake, to join the Filth.
Ellis satirised received opinions of both tribes, and could [1] Angela Thomas, ‘Goodchild takes a risk on a trial run’,
usefully start scriptwriters pondering what new approach The Stage and Television Today, 16th July 1987, p.
they could manufacture”.[35] 18.
[2] Anonymous, ‘BBC drama issues a budget challenge’,
We shall leave the last word to two of the play’s cast. The Stage and Television Today, 16th July 1987, p.
17.
Ralph Brown: “I remain extremely proud of The
e Blac
ck an
nd [3] Taken from an interview with Thompson, now the
Blue
e Lam
mp, which I think was an astonishingly brave TV BBC's Head of Films, on his work with Alan Clarke.
drama. Nothing we see on TV now comes close”. Such generosity with time in allowing digressions onto
forgotten play strands - “God, I never thought
Sean Chapman: “It is very important that contemporary and anybody would ask me about this!” - was very kind.
future students of Television drama are shown what a [4] This quotation and all those which follow are taken
powerful tool of social criticism and polemic this medium can from a memoir of the production very generously
be. Not something immediately apparent from today’s written for me by Arthur Ellis, for whose help
output… I suppose the most interesting thing about this researching this play and Christine I am hugely
period of drama was how impactive it was. People would grateful.
stop you on the street for weeks (sometimes years) [5] The Blue Lamp press book. Steve Chibnall, ‘The
afterwards, and want to talk about the themes, the issues teenage trilogy: The Blue Lamp, I Believe in You and
and the performances… It’s a truly saddening experience to Violent Playground’, Alan Burton, Tim O’ Sullivan, Paul
go for (rare) drama castings at the BBC today, to walk along Wells (editors), Liberal Directions: Basil Dearden and Waiting patiently for tea and a jam bun...(© BBC)

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