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Sweeney, The

"He's a big fan of yours...usually""If we find out you're fibbing, I'm gonna come down so hard on you, you'll have to reach up to tie your shoelaces"“I SOMETIMES hate this bastard place.” Casually sweary, casually violent, casually clothed crotchety crimeathon that briefly passed into parody but the last time we checked had emerged out the other side pretty much unscathed. JOHN “REGAN” THAW and DENNIS “CARTER” WATERMAN belt round London in a succession of tatty cars and suits hunting “big tickles” and “monkeys” off the back of “gen” from “smudgers” and “snouts”. Boss GARFIELD MORGAN inhabits world of bad shaves and old coffee cups.

3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. Tom Ronson

    March 31, 2022 at 4:13 pm

    For some reason, I remembered this as quite a tatty production shot on ratty old 16mm film with boom microphones constantly bobbing up and down above the cast members’ heads. A few years ago, I went back and watched the entire run on DVD, and was pleasantly surprised at what a professional job Euston Films did on the series – some excellent photography and top-notch direction. Naturally, it ran out of steam toward the end, and there were a few too many ‘comedy’ episodes in the fourth and final series, but on the whole, legendary status well and truly deserved.

  2. Glenn Aylett

    April 23, 2022 at 12:30 pm

    An era where the police smoked and drank like it was going out of fashion, used politically incorrect terms for minority groups, were borderline thugs when they had a ” slag ” to deal with, and mostly got results. The Sweeney is great if you want to see what policing was probably like in London in 1976 and how quaint the country looks to our eyes. ( Black and white tellies, outside toilets, buildings blackened with years of soot and cardboard box shaped cars).

    • THX 1139

      April 23, 2022 at 6:52 pm

      The police are pretty much like that now, if recent reports are to be believed.

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