On this day (16th October) in 1984, British television encountered a revolution in programming, with the very first episode of The Bill airing on ITV, meaning that today marks the show's 40th anniversary.
The 16th October 1984 was a Tuesday, and The Bill continued to air on Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout its 26yrs on-air (the final episode of The Bill aired on August 31st 2010.)
The Bill was a huge part of my life from around 1997-2009, and I very strongly connected with PC Tony Stamp, played by Graham Cole, one of the few actors I actually became interested in enough to follow through other aspects of their career, and through the non-acting elements of their life they choose to share.
The 16th October 1984 was a Tuesday, and The Bill continued to air on Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout its 26yrs on-air (the final episode of The Bill aired on August 31st 2010.)
The Bill was a huge part of my life from around 1997-2009, and I very strongly connected with PC Tony Stamp, played by Graham Cole, one of the few actors I actually became interested in enough to follow through other aspects of their career, and through the non-acting elements of their life they choose to share.
(For something very different to The Bill featuring Graham Cole - and the late Tony Scannell, who played DS Ted Roach in The Bill - I can definitely recommend Evil Never Dies)
Growing up, Tony Stamp was very much a role model. While I moved away, in my teens, from an early ambition to join the police, Tony Stamp was still someone I wanted to become - by the time I was 16, I'd decided I was going to pursue haulage as a career - taking inspiration from the fact that Stamp, as well as being a copper, held a HGV licence, and was shown driving trucks, and mini-digger (badly, in the case of the mini digger!)
Life unfortunately got in the way of that ambition - after I failed my third driving test in a way which a) terrified the driving examiner, and b) centred on a manoeuvre that is no longer assessed (that's actually a recurring feature of my life - things which throw insurmountable barriers in front of me eventually get removed for people down the line, at a point where I can no longer circle back and benefit from the removal of the barrier), I was referred for a DVLA-standard sight test; which I failed, meaning I was medically banned from driving at the age of 19. (The impact being banned from driving has had over the past almost 20yrs has had is another story, for another blog post.) However, Tony Stamp was a character who had a lot to offer in terms of role-model potential beyond career guidance. Over the course of my time watching The Bill, I got to see Tony go from a bold, brash young guy, to a calmer, wiser, elder by the time he left Sunhill - very much a harbinger to how my own personal development would play out, and the trajectory that holds true for the majority of men.
Life unfortunately got in the way of that ambition - after I failed my third driving test in a way which a) terrified the driving examiner, and b) centred on a manoeuvre that is no longer assessed (that's actually a recurring feature of my life - things which throw insurmountable barriers in front of me eventually get removed for people down the line, at a point where I can no longer circle back and benefit from the removal of the barrier), I was referred for a DVLA-standard sight test; which I failed, meaning I was medically banned from driving at the age of 19. (The impact being banned from driving has had over the past almost 20yrs has had is another story, for another blog post.) However, Tony Stamp was a character who had a lot to offer in terms of role-model potential beyond career guidance. Over the course of my time watching The Bill, I got to see Tony go from a bold, brash young guy, to a calmer, wiser, elder by the time he left Sunhill - very much a harbinger to how my own personal development would play out, and the trajectory that holds true for the majority of men.
(Women, it is definitely worth watching the repeats of The Bill, which are still available on U , and following the course of Tony Stamp's development. Not all men are like this, of course, but it's a good guideline for where men are at different points in their lives. There are differences between men and women - that's something that, as a trans man who has never connected with womanhood, I am very keenly aware of, and, again, is a subject for another blog post.) As The Bill progressed, we got to see more of the officers' personal lives, and flashes of backstory which gave more insight into the characters where they were at when we, the viewers, meet them.
A lot of people who are currently serving police officers relate Tony Stamp as being their inspiration for joining the police - proof that "influencer culture" began long before social media, and isn't necessarily a bad thing! In my case, if my sight hadn't derailed my ambitions, my own career may well have been one that was influenced by Tony Stamp, even though it would have been a very different direction from uniformed services.
Tony Stamp, and The Bill more generally, were very present influences for the Raglan's Streets series (check out my publications page for the order of the series) which I wrote and self-published over a number of years, and which, in the absence of The Bill being rebooted, I would be very up for seeing adapted for television.
Would I want The Bill to be rebooted?
I would - but not in the way most fans talk about. I'd personally prefer to see a more Endeavour-style event, with a focus on one or two characters per series, focusing on their 'early-career-years' backstories.
I'd be very keen to see an in-depth exploration of Tony Stamp's story and history - and if anyone wants to do that as a stage show, I'd be very interested in auditioning for the part of Stamp at the mid-point of his life! (Honestly, this possibility would prompt me to return to acting, one of many things I walked away from back when I started transition, as my experience had been feeling anxious and uncomfortable going for female parts - and mostly being literally laughed out of auditions -but being told I couldn't audition for male roles, and I couldn't see a future in which I could both be the person I needed to be, and pursue acting.)
What I feel The Bill brought, which nothing else really has before or since, was an holistic willingness to be "awkwardly real." For a long period of its time on-air, The Bill was shot with handheld cameras, creating a very gritty, realistic presentation. (I didn't actually care for the shift to ultra-slick HD, personally.) It showed flawed - sometimes fatally flawed - characters without attempting to justify their flaws, skirt around them, gloss over them, or gaslight the viewers.
Tony Stamp, and The Bill more generally, were very present influences for the Raglan's Streets series (check out my publications page for the order of the series) which I wrote and self-published over a number of years, and which, in the absence of The Bill being rebooted, I would be very up for seeing adapted for television.
Would I want The Bill to be rebooted?
I would - but not in the way most fans talk about. I'd personally prefer to see a more Endeavour-style event, with a focus on one or two characters per series, focusing on their 'early-career-years' backstories.
I'd be very keen to see an in-depth exploration of Tony Stamp's story and history - and if anyone wants to do that as a stage show, I'd be very interested in auditioning for the part of Stamp at the mid-point of his life! (Honestly, this possibility would prompt me to return to acting, one of many things I walked away from back when I started transition, as my experience had been feeling anxious and uncomfortable going for female parts - and mostly being literally laughed out of auditions -but being told I couldn't audition for male roles, and I couldn't see a future in which I could both be the person I needed to be, and pursue acting.)
What I feel The Bill brought, which nothing else really has before or since, was an holistic willingness to be "awkwardly real." For a long period of its time on-air, The Bill was shot with handheld cameras, creating a very gritty, realistic presentation. (I didn't actually care for the shift to ultra-slick HD, personally.) It showed flawed - sometimes fatally flawed - characters without attempting to justify their flaws, skirt around them, gloss over them, or gaslight the viewers.
The Bill showed problematic "heroes" - and allowed them to be both heroes and problematic. We need more media that reminds people that human beings are that complex and complicated, that many, if not all, of us have problematic aspects, which do not prevent us from being mostly good people, with a desire to do better than we currently are.
One of the things which is still very much a topic of discourse among fans of The Bill and Tony Stamp as a character is the fact that he "deserved better" when it came to women - that he was "a genuinely decent, caring guy, who got shafted by women being shallow" - but we need to see that. We need to see that there needs to be something more than "being a nice, decent person", just as there needs to be more than someone being physically attractive, as we see from so many relationships which fail in the everyday. Peoples' desires and motives around personal connection are complex, and sometimes not even clear to the people themselves.
For me, Stamp being frustratedly, unhappily single is part of what makes him a relatable character; many of us, from all walks of life, at all stages in that life, have to live in the aftermath of never getting what we want. I don't like romance as a genre, because, as a genre, romance has to have a "happy ending" - either happy ever after, or "happy for now", and, too often, romance is written (or acted) badly, meaning that the required "happy ending" feels very forced. I much prefer stories like Stamp's - where there's nothing objectively "wrong" with the main character, where they show strong potential to be someone's "happy ever after", and they want that for themselves - but it just never happens, and they have to come to a place of understanding who they are without a "significant other."
So, forty years on from the first time - here's to The Bill, and PC Tony Stamp, a TV show and a main character which both significantly shaped the man I became, and the man I am becoming.
One of the things which is still very much a topic of discourse among fans of The Bill and Tony Stamp as a character is the fact that he "deserved better" when it came to women - that he was "a genuinely decent, caring guy, who got shafted by women being shallow" - but we need to see that. We need to see that there needs to be something more than "being a nice, decent person", just as there needs to be more than someone being physically attractive, as we see from so many relationships which fail in the everyday. Peoples' desires and motives around personal connection are complex, and sometimes not even clear to the people themselves.
For me, Stamp being frustratedly, unhappily single is part of what makes him a relatable character; many of us, from all walks of life, at all stages in that life, have to live in the aftermath of never getting what we want. I don't like romance as a genre, because, as a genre, romance has to have a "happy ending" - either happy ever after, or "happy for now", and, too often, romance is written (or acted) badly, meaning that the required "happy ending" feels very forced. I much prefer stories like Stamp's - where there's nothing objectively "wrong" with the main character, where they show strong potential to be someone's "happy ever after", and they want that for themselves - but it just never happens, and they have to come to a place of understanding who they are without a "significant other."
So, forty years on from the first time - here's to The Bill, and PC Tony Stamp, a TV show and a main character which both significantly shaped the man I became, and the man I am becoming.
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