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Dixon of Dock Green Part 1 of 3
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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.
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.
This was composed by Jeff Darnell. Unlike later police series, Dixon
focused less on crime and policing and more on the family-like nature
of life in the station (and at home) with Dixon, a warm, paternal and
frequently moralising presence, being the central focus where crime
was little more than petty larceny. Dixon lived in a small mid-
terraced house on a busy road. He liked a drink, as did his police
friends.
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. One exception was the 1956 episode
The Rotten Apple where Policeman Tom Carr (Paul Eddington) was found
to have been burgling houses while on his beat. Dixon said there was
nothing worse on Earth than a policemen who committed crimes.
The police station featured in the opening titles was the previous
Ealing police station, located at number 5 High Street, just north of
Ealing Green.[1][2]
[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. Designer was Laurence Broadhouse.
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).
Subtitled in the early days: Some Stories of a London Policeman, each
episode started with Dixon speaking to the camera. He began with a
salute and the greeting "Good evening all"[3], 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 to camera 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 23 year old daughter, Mary (who did not
appear in the film) in the 19th episode, Father in Law (1st Sept
1956). Dixon sings a few songs at the wedding and wishes the viewers
goodbye at the end of the episode (this was the end of series 2 and
series 3 was four months away). The couple moved to a flat in
Chelmsford.
By the end of the series, Warner was elderly and George Dixon had been
promoted to Station Sergeant and given a desk job (as he had
increasing difficulty moving about, helped slightly by a treatment
involving bee stings). 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
(1955-1976 / 22 Series / 432 episodes)
* Jack Warner ... PC George Dixon
* Peter Byrne ... PC/DC/DS/DI Andy Crawford
* Arthur Rigby ... Sgt. Flint
* Neil Wilson... PC "Tubb" Barrell
* Jeanette Hutchinson ... Mary Dixon/Crawford # 2
* Moira Mannion ... WP Sgt. Grace Millard
* Robert Cawdron ... DI Bob Cherry
* Graham Ashley ... PC/DC Tommy Hughes
* Anthony Parker ... PC Bob Penney
* Geoffrey Adams ... PC/DC 'Laudie' Lauderdale
* David Webster ... Cadet Jamie MacPherson
* Jocelyne Rhodes ... WPC Kay Shaw / ... (1960-1964,1967,1971
* Hilda Fenemore ... Jennie Wren / ... (1960-1965
* Nicholas Donnelly ... PC/Sgt. Johnny Wills
* Anne Ridler ... WP Sgt. Chris Freeman
* John Hughes ... PC John Jones
* Jan Miller... WPC Alex Johns / ... (1962-1964
* Peter Thornton ...PC Burton
* Robert Arnold ... PC/DC Swain
* Anne Carroll ... WPC Shirley Palmer
* Duncan Lamont... Sgt. Bob Cooper
* Joe Dunlop ... DC Pearson
* Michael Osborne ... PC David Newton
[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 originally produced at the BBC's studios at
Lime Grove. Altogether some 430 episodes were made, at first running
30 minutes and later 45 minutes.
[edit] Missing episodes
Most of the original 432 episodes of the show are still missing. Only
51 still exist, due to the BBC's policy of wiping old tapes before
realising their possible historical significance - in summary:
* Series 2 (1956) the last five episodes
* Series 7 (1960) two episodes
* Series 9 (1962) three episodes
* Series 11 (1964) one episode
* Series 13 (1966) five episodes
* Series 14 (1967) seven episodes
* Series 15 (1968) three episodes
* Series 17 (1970/1) first episode
* Series 18 (1971/2) two episodes
* Series 20 (1974) five episodes
* Series 21 (1975) nine episodes
* Series 22 (1976) complete – eight episodes.
In addition, location film sequences exist for 14 otherwise missing
episodes, as follows: series 7 (1), series 13 (4), series 14 (6),
series 15 (3).[4]
The public appeal campaign the BBC Archive Treasure Hunt continues to
search for lost episodes.
[edit] Bringing Dixon down to earth
In 1988, a screenplay called The Black and Blue Lamp was shown on BBC
TV. In it two identical criminals named Tom Riley, one from the 1950
film (in which Dixon dies) and one from the 1980s, swap places in
time. The one from the 80's experiences the soft policing of the Dixon
TV series. Meanwhile, the one from 1950 experiences the very harsh
policing of the 80's, represented by a parody of violent police
procedurals called The Filth. There he discovers that the Dixon of the
divergent Dock Green timeline, who has also just been killed, was as
bad as any copper could be.
[edit] Influence
A scene from an episode of Dixon of Dock Green is being broadcast when
"V" breaks into the TV studios in Alan Moore and David Lloyd's classic
graphic novel V for Vendetta. The action in the novel takes place in a
dystopian police state which is an oppressive one when compared to the
world of Dixon.[citation needed]
[edit] References
1. ^ 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.
2. ^ McEwan, Kate (1983). Ealing Walkabout: Journeys into the
history of a London borough.. Cheshire, UK.: Nick Wheatly Associates.
pp. 45. ISBN 0 9508895 0 4.
3. ^ http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/tv/adults/dixon/dixon.htm
4. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/treasurehunt/missing/dixon.shtml
[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
* The Black and Blue Lamp
(wikipedia)