Stratford Johns's Inspector Barlow began life in Z Cars in 1962. The critics all say that this series had such an impact because, until then, police drama on television had meant Dixon of Dock Green, which presented a laughably cosy picture of British policing.
Not many episodes of Dixon survive - certainly, few have made their way on to YouTube - but I thought I would watch one of them so I could form my own judgement.
So I chose Wasteland from 1970 and was pleasantly surprised.
Yes, you have to set aside the fact that Jack Warner was by then visibly a couple of decades past retirement age. And even Dixon's son-in-law Andy Crawford, played by Peter Byrne, must have been disappointed not to have made it past Detective Sergeant at his age.
But get past that and there's nothing cosy about it.
Dixon's opening monologue, the description of the missing police officer's dream by his wife and, above all, the vast derelict landscape in which it is set give Wasteland an eerie quality.
And, perhaps because the show was developed by the Labour-supporting Ted Willis, the script is on the side of the ordinary constable rather than the higher ranks - note the disparaging comment about the police medical service.
Among the cast we find - long before Inspector Morse or The Box of Delights - James Grout as Chief Inspector Prescott. His boss, Chief Superintendent Bannister, is played by Arnold Peters, who was the voice of Jack Wooley on The Archers for many years.
You may also recognise the mother of the little boy who collects the numbers of police cars. She is Anna Karen, better known as Olive from On the Buses.
But the real star of the show is that landscape. I believe it was filmed on the Isle of Dogs and that the 'wasteland' is the Mudchute, which is now a park with an urban farm and its own station on the Docklands Light Railway.
Some people on Twitter say they recognise the vast industrial building at the start of the episode from Doctor Who and Blake's 7. Where do television companies find to film now that Docklands has been redeveloped? These derelict riverside locations were a favourite of Gideon and The Sweeney too.
So that's The Wasteland for you - a warning not to accept the word of critics uncritically.
2 comments:
To those of us who who didn't and don't know London, the shabby landscapes portrayed in popular dramas are familiar reminders of why we didn't waste our time learning the place. I recall a Michael Caine interview from the late 1980s or so about how London had escaped the construction of tall buildings which might have destroyed the skyscape. Hmm, now.
I binged on episodes of Dixon a few years ago. One episode from the 1970s, a theme about indirect racism, seemed well tuned to the realities of race politics at the time. It had a do-as-you-would-be-done-by flavour rather than the preachy message of so-called serious dramas.
I once described ITV's Gideon series as "London before turbocapitalism and moral relativism".
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