Dixon of Dock Green
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Dixon of Dock Green | |
|---|---|
 Jack Warner as Constable George Dixon |
|
| Format | Police procedural |
| Created by | Ted Willis |
| Starring | Jack Warner |
| Country of origin |  United Kingdom |
| No. of episodes | 430 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 25 minutes & 45 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | BBC |
| Original run | 9 July 1955 – 1 May 1976 |
| External links | |
| IMDb profile | |
Dixon of Dock Green was a popular BBC television series, which ran from 1955 to 1976, and later a radio series. Despite being a drama series, it was initially produced by the BBC's light entertainment department.
Contents |
[edit] Overview
Beginning in 1955 and finally ending in 1976, Dixon Of Dock Green was a popular series although its homeliness would later become a benchmark to measure the "realism" of police series such as Z Cars and The Bill. The series was set in a suburban police station in the East End of London and concerned uniformed police engaged with routine tasks and low-level crime. The ordinary, everyday nature of the people and the setting was emphasised in early episodes by the British music-hall song "Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner" with its sentimental evocations of a cosy community, being used as the series theme song. Unlike later police series, Dixon focused less on crime and policing and more on the family-like nature of life in the station with Officer Dixon, a warm, paternal and frequently moralising presence, being the central focus where crime was little more than petty larceny. However as the 1960s and the early 1970s brought more realistic police series from both sides of the Atlantic to the British public, Dixon Of Dock Green seemed increasingly unrealistic, a rosy view of the police that grew out of touch with the times. Yet the writer of the series always maintained to the end of the programme's time that stories were based on fact and that Dixon was an accurate reflection of what goes on in an ordinary police station.
[edit] Outline of characters and plots
The main character, Police Constable George Dixon, played by Jack Warner, was an old-style British "bobby" (policeman). The character first appeared in a 1950 British film by Ealing, The Blue Lamp, in which he was shot and killed by a criminal played by Dirk Bogarde. However, it was decided to bring him back to life for a television series, written by Ted Willis.
If Dixon was known to the public, the actor Jack Warner was even better known. Born in London in 1896, Warner had been a comedian in radio and in his early film career. Starting in the early 1940s he broadened his range to include dramatic roles, becoming a warmly human character actor in the process. But as well as playing in films with dramatic themes, such as The Blue Lamp, Warner continued to play in comedies such as the successful Huggett family programmes on BBC Radio and films made between 1948 and 1953.
In Dixon Of Dock Green, Dixon is a "bobby" on the beat - lowest-ranking policeman on foot patrol. With the inevitable heart of gold, Dixon was a widower raising an only daughter Mary (Billie Whitelaw in early episodes, later replaced by Jeannette Hutchinson).
Each episode started with Dixon speaking to the camera. He began with a salute and the greeting "Good evening all"[1] (good evening, everyone), which was changed to "Evening all" in the early 1970s, which has lived on in Britain as a jocular greeting. In similar fashion, episodes finished with a few words from Dixon in the form of philosophy on the evils of crime.
Initially, Dixon continued in the same role as in the film The Blue Lamp, a constable based at the fictitious Dock Green police station in the East End of London. The character of Andy Mitchell (played by Jimmy Hanley), the young constable in the film, became a detective named Andy Crawford (played by Peter Byrne), in the CID at Dock Green, and he was married to Dixon's daughter Mary (who did not appear in the film).
By the end of the series, Warner was elderly and George Dixon had been promoted to Station Sergeant and given a desk job. In the final series, when Warner was 80, Dixon had retired from the police.
In 2005, the series was revived for BBC radio, adapted by Sue Rodwell, with David Calder as George Dixon, David Tennant as Andy Crawford, and Charlie Brooks as Mary Dixon. A second series followed in 2006, with Hamish Clark replacing Tennant owing to the latter's Doctor Who filming commitments.
[edit] Cast
- Jack Warner ... PC George Dixon / ... (432 episodes, 1955-1976)
- Peter Byrne ... Det. Sgt. Andy Crawford / ... (424 episodes, 1955-1975)
- Geoffrey Adams ... Det. Con. 'Laudie' Lauderdale / ... (298 episodes, 1958-1972)
- Arthur Rigby ... Sgt. Flint (253 episodes, 1955-1965)
- Jeanette Hutchinson ... Mary Crawford / ... (212 episodes, 1956-1969)
- Nicholas Donnelly ... Sgt. Johnny Wills / ... (206 episodes, 1960-1976)
- Moira Mannion ... WP Sgt. Grace Millard / ... (142 episodes, 1956-1961)
- Robert Arnold ... PC Swain / ... (132 episodes, 1964-1971)
- David Webster ... Cadet Jamie MacPherson / ... (92 episodes, 1959-1962)
- Graham Ashley ... PC Tommy Hughes / ... (79 episodes, 1958-1974)
- Robert Cawdron ... Det. Insp. Cherry / ... (56 episodes, 1955-1965)
- Anthony Parker ... PC Bob Penney (56 episodes, 1957-1959)
- Anne Ridler ... WP Sgt. Chris Freeman (55 episodes, 1962-1964)
- Jocelyn Rhodes ... WPC Kay Shaw / ... (54 episodes, 1959-1971)
- John Hughes ... PC John Jones (50 episodes, 1962-1964)
- Anne Carroll ... WPC Shirley Palmer / ... (50 episodes, 1963-1966)
- Peter Thornton ... PC Burton / ... (44 episodes, 1964-1976)
- Hilda Fenemore ... Jennie Wren / ... (43 episodes, 1955-1965)
- Michael Osborne ... PC David Newton (42 episodes, 1970-1972)
- Jan Miller ... WPC Alex Johns (39 episodes, 1962-1964)
- Joe Dunlop ... Det. Con. Pearson / ... (38 episodes, 1966-1975)
[edit] Dixon's name
The Blue Lamp was produced by Michael Balcon, a former pupil of George Dixon School in Birmingham, which was in turn named after a local politician, George Dixon.
[edit] Release and reception
The BBC scheduled Dixon in the family time slot of 6:30 on Saturday night. At the time it started on air in 1955, the drama schedule of the BBC was mostly restricted to television plays so that Dixon of Dock Green had little trouble in building and maintaining a large and loyal audience. In 1961, the series was voted second most popular programme on British television with an estimated audience of 13.85 million. Even in 1965 after three years of the gritty and grimy procedural police-work of Z Cars, the audience for Dixon stood at 11.5 million. However as the 1960s wore on, ratings began to fall and this, with health questions around Jack Warner, led the BBC to end the series in 1976.
The series was the creation of writer Ted Willis, who not only wrote the series over its 20 years on British television but had a controlling hand in production. Longtime producer of the series was Douglas Moodie whose other television credits include The Inch Man and The Airbase. Dixon was produced at the BBC's studios at Lime Grove. Altogether some 430 episodes were made, at first running 30 minutes and later 45 minutes. Only a handful of episodes still exist[2]
[edit] Trivia
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- A lot of Dixonisms are used as catchphrases in Terry Pratchett's Discworld Night Watch cycle, most often by the 'good cop' Carrot Ironfoundersson.
- A 1970s advertising campaign for a brand of colour television set featured the slogan "Are you still watching Dixon of Dock Grey?"
- The police station featured in the opening titles of Dixon of Dock Green was the previous Ealing police station, located at number 5 High Street, just north off Ealing Green.[1] [2]
[edit] References
- ^ Ealing and Brentford: Public services, A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 7: Acton, Chiswick, Ealing and Brentford, West Twyford, Willesden (1982), pp. 147-149. Date accessed: 10 May 2008.
- ^ McEwan, Kate (1983). Ealing Walkabout: Journeys into the history of a London borough.. Cheshire, UK.: Nick Wheatly Associates, p 45. ISBN 0 9508895 0 4.
[edit] External links
- Dixon of Dock Green at the Internet Movie Database
- Encyclopedia of Television
- British Film Institute Screen Online
- Action TV
- BBC Treasure Hunt
