The Bill at 40: "The show didn't get the recognition it probably deserved"

The key to unlocking that status was gripping storylines and characters who we became fiercely invested in, one of whom was Jim Carver, a man who was often in the eye of the storm.

"The laughs we had," Mark Wingett reminisced with RadioTimes.com on the show's 40th anniversary. "Because the subject matter was so dark and you work hard on those shows, we made four episodes at a time, we'd often sit around giggling – between takes, during takes, after takes. It was so much fun.

"To be served with those extraordinary scripts and a great cast, as an actor you couldn't wish for anything more."

Wingett played Jim for 21 years, during which time the probationer-turned-DC suffered from alcoholism and a gambling addiction, was arrested for murder, and had his fair share of romantic turbulence with another iconic character, June (Trudie Goodwin), and his alcoholic wife, Marie.

"That was great fun [laughs]," he said of his many dramatic storylines. "That's just my warped, warped mind, but the faults in a character are always the great things to play."

And that was just Jim's private life. The job itself threw up an endless conveyor belt of challenges, from kidnappings to violent assaults to the time he survived an attack from masked men wielding an automatic rifle – and often before he'd even had his second cuppa of the day.

The Bill wasn't always concerned with its characters' private lives. "When it originally started out, every scene had to have a police officer," explained Wingett. "It was seen through the eyes of the police and personal lives were left out."

But following the death of former cast member Kevin Lloyd, who was an alcoholic, he felt there was an opportunity to dive deeper.

"Carver was faced with a demotion and I said, 'Well, why don't you give him a few problems?' So I worked very closely with producers Michael Simpson and Richard Hanford, and very closely with the directors, and I'm proud of what we achieved.

"There's a series arc of maybe a dozen episodes dealing with that particular subject [of Jim's alcoholism], and that was the start of those types of storylines. It marked a change in direction in the series as a whole. The show started looking at these well-known fictitious characters as human beings."

And that wasn't the only shift The Bill underwent.

"There were a lot of phases, half a dozen changes in formatting," he said. "There were half-hour formats, hour formats. At one point it was shifting around the schedule, and never really settled until it got the Tuesday and Thursday slots."

As its popularity increased, the behind-the-scenes set-up also expanded: "The Bill grew and grew and grew from a tiny little ex-tobacco factory in the East End of London to this huge studio in South West London.

"In the early days, the CID officers were actually the production offices which were taken over. All the secretaries and office workers were told to go to the canteen so we could film [laughs]. It was home grown, cottage industry television."

"Starting off small", as Wingett puts it, was how so many life-long friendships were formed on the series.

"It's like family," he said. "I know lots of shows say that, but we truly were. We were half-improvising the first series, and that way, you get to work very closely with each other. That was probably the most extraordinary thing, making friends like that, and to still have those friends 40 years later, especially Trudie."

At its peak, The Bill attracted almost 10 million viewers for a live episode in 2003 – that's a mammoth 40% of UK TV watchers. But despite impressive ratings, Wingett believes "it was never really regarded with any kind of merit", adding: "Other shows won awards, not that I'm bitter about that because I think awards are ridiculous anyway, but The Bill was kind of overlooked. The show didn't get the recognition it probably deserved."

During its run through the '80s, '90s and early to mid-2000s, it picked up two National Television accolades for Most Popular Drama, one BAFTA for Best Continuing Drama and one Royal Television Society Award for Best Soap or Continuing Drama.

Does he think snobbery from certain quarters prevented it from picking up more?

"Maybe," he pondered. "I think it fell between two stools. It was never really taken as a true drama, and it was never really taken as a soap opera until towards the end of the show, so it was in a category of its own."

That also applies to the quality of its guest stars, with the show acting as an unofficial training centre for up-and-coming talent. Some were already names when they popped up, such as Ray Winstone and Hugh Laurie, but many were unknowns who would go on to become global stars, from Sean Bean to Keira Knightley, David Tennant to Idris Elba.

"I met Idris at a film awards a few years ago," said Wingett. "He looked at me and went, 'Oh you nicked me a couple of times,' which was great [laughs]."

Were there any newcomers that made a strong impression on him?

"I can think of one immediately and that was Douglas Henshall, who did an episode called Darkness before Dawn. I think he'd thrown his daughter off a balcony of a tower block, or she'd fallen.

"We filmed it around Christmas time and it was an interview room scene I did with him and he was outstanding. Absolutely outstanding. Just hit it bang on."

He added: "The guest actors who came in, it was extremely rare, if at all, that anybody gave a bad performance, which is testament to the depth of talent we have in this country."

While the UK remains fascinated by stories set within the world of the police force, with recent examples including The Responder and Blue Lights, The Bill stands apart in terms of its tone and the number of years it dominated our TV watching habits.

Does Wingett think we could see a show like it again?

"I hope so," he said. "There's always an interest in it. But the police force has changed so much. Even from when The Bill was first made to when it finished in 2010, it changed, so it would be a very, very different show.

"There's no small police stations. It's all divisional headquarters that are run out of these massive centres, and less coppers on the beat. And they're always in Hi Vis, which is horrible [laughs]. We've got a thing about Hi Vis in this country.

"It'd be interesting to make the first series and see what happens. There's a place for it. Everything starts with good scripts."

But would it be given the time to grow in this current economy?

"The Bill didn't really grab the imagination immediately, but Thames Television stuck with it for four years until it became a success," explained Wingett. "Now, that wouldn't happen in the modern era with a TV drama, because as soon as the ratings came in, there would be a meeting in the morning to see whether they were going to continue or not.

"I suppose it was the end of the golden age of television when it started, with a very rich TV company who could indulge themselves and make this programme into a success. It was good timing, in many ways."

He added: "And it was approaching a tried, proven model in a new way. I remember that first series, in about '83, '84, I was doing a scene at a urinal with Eric Richard. It was the first time you'd actually seen policemen urinating on television [laughs].

"At the time it was groundbreaking because it was made in a documentary style, although that changed later on as the stories got more involved."

As our chat wrapped up, I was curious to know what Wingett thinks happened to Jim.

"He became a sergeant in Manchester," he asserted. "That was the last episode, when he came to try and win June back. I hope he's found somebody and I hope he's happy, maybe up north with his wife and a Labrador."

He paused.

"Probably not [laughs]. No, probably not. That's not Jim. He'll be in the middle of some crisis somewhere. There will be a moral dilemma of sorts, or him being bashed up by a drug cartel."

That's our Jim.

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