Next Week In The Bill

The Bill Back On The Beat In Scotland?

STV has admitted it was wrong to axe popular dramas such as The Bill and will bring them back to Scottish screens in the New Year...
Read more here:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/top-dramas-on-the-way-back-as-stv-ratings-hit-all-time-low-1.994720

The Bill Billboard Campaign

In the month that ITV 3 have ensured that The Bill remains in the public conciousness in Scotland with a billboard campaign to highlight the show's ITV 3 catch up screenings, so STV have admitted their policy of dropping network series has backfired.
Read more here:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/2784657/ITVs-Bill-board-ads.html

On The Streets

The rest of us might have had a Happy Christmas (Season's Greetings to one and all) but part two of The Bill's festive offering just gets darker and darker - and I love it. In Scotland? Don't miss the repeat on Monday at 11pm on ITV3.



THE BILL
On The Streets - Episode 022
Tuesday 29 2009, 21.00 to 22.00, ITV1
*Guest starring Ralph Ineson as Greg Simm*

Having spent the night on the streets, D.C Mickey Webb (Chris Simmons) is kicked awake by an aggressive street cleaner. Just as the cleaner is about to deliver a good kicking, Nicola McKenzie (Michelle Asante), a homeless girl Mickey has befriended, comes to his rescue.

Promising to see her later, Mickey meets D.C. Jacob Banks (Patrick Robinson) who tells him Reggie Sharp (Jay Simpson) won’t reveal who the mysterious ‘Greg’ is and why the homeless community are terrified of him. Back at the station, D.S. Max Carter (Christopher Fox) and Banksy head up a briefing after discovering that solicitor Jake had been volunteering in local soup kitchens in the months leading up to his death.

They also finally learn that ‘Greg’ is Greg Simm (Ralph Ineson), a local property developer with form for fraud and deception. D.C. Jo Masters (Sally Rogers) explains that Greg wanted to develop a site near the crime scene but had problems with homeless squatters.

Banksy and Jo visit Greg at work, who seems genuinely surprised by the news of Jakes death. He admits Jake wanted to meet him to talk about using some empty properties as temporary accommodation, but Greg refused. The investigation takes yet another sinister turn when elderly homeless man Lenny Wiseman (Barry McCarthy) is found dead in an alleyway by a stunned Mickey and Nicola. Is this the work of Greg...?

Later that day when Mickey and Nicola finally stumble across Reggie, the pair tell him about Lenny and Mickey persuades Reggie and Nicola to open up. They explain that Greg was responsible for Lenny losing his home and when he kicked up a fuss, Greg sent Ryan Nelson (Simon Darwen) after him.

Jake became involved when Lenny sought legal advice from him. Mickey calls Banksy to say that Ryan is linked to Jakes murder, but when the police turn up to arrest Ryan in a busy market, Nicola spots the thug and filled with rage, goes to punch him. As a brawl ensues, Mickey pulls Nicola away and the pair run off, leaving Banksy concerned by how involved Mickey is in the case.

Banksy later realises that the evidence against Nicola is mounting when he discovers she and Jake were far closer than originally thought and were due to meet the day he was murdered.

Mickey calls Banksy to see what’s happening with the investigation and is horrified to hear that Nicola is now the prime suspect and he has to bring her in. Defensive and certain she had nothing to do with Jakes murder he hangs up, much to Max’s fury. Has Mickey put his job on the line to protect a murderer...?

THE BILL is a talkbackTHAMES production and a direct commission by ITV. This episode was written by Patrick Homes, directed by Rob Knights and produced by Ciara McIlvenny.

Invisible Man

A Christmas themed two-parter from The Bill this year. This first episode had the working title On The Streets Part One.

Notice the ITV1 transmission has been changed to a Tuesday.




THE BILL
Invisible Man - Episode 021
Tuesday 22 December 2009, 21.00 to 22.00, ITV1

On a cold winter’s morning, D.C.’s Mickey Webb (Chris Simmons) and Jacob Banks (Patrick Robinson) stand at a Thames dockside, waiting for marine officers to offload a corpse found in the river.

They examine the body which has been in the water all night and are confused when they discover the young man is wearing designer clothes, as well as a dirty old looking coat, which is later recognised as belonging to local homeless man Reggie Sharp (Jay Simpson).

After further investigation, the body is identified as Jake Evans and D.C. Grace Dasari (Amita Dhiri) has to break the news to his devastated fiancée Susie Hughes (Amy Cudden). Susie admits that she and Jake had a huge argument a few nights before he died and when Jake broke up with her she moved in with a friend Paul Harding (Gyuri Sarossy).

Grace is convinced Susie is hiding something, but after accompanying her to the morgue to identify Jake, finally believes that she had nothing to do with his death. Grace is also interested to learn that Jake had recently started to volunteer with a local homeless shelter - but how did he end up dead, in Reggie’s coat..?

Mickey and Banksy make enquiries and soon discover that Paul, clearly in love with Susie, went to Jake’s flat the night he died. He admits they fought, but swears Jake was alive when he left.

The officers hit the streets to talk to the homeless community and although no one has seen Reggie recently, the officers discover that he’s friends with a young homeless girl, Nicola (Michelle Asante).

Mickey, having more luck than Banksy, decides to stay out on the streets to see if he can get more information. He soon befriends Nicola, who believes he’s homeless and the pair go to a church which provides food for the homeless.

As they leave the shelter, Nicola sees a thug beating up her elderly friend, Lenny (Barry McCarthy). Mickey rushes to help and after seeing off the man, gains the trust of Nicola who leads him to Reggie. As the group share some drinks, Lenny tells Reggie and Nicola that he’s heard Jake has been murdered and Reggie wonders aloud if someone called Greg is involved.

While Mickey stays out on the streets that night, he contacts Banksy to tell him where they can pick Reggie up. Reggie is taken in for questioning and assists the police by trying to recount his whereabouts on the night Jake died. When they question him about Jakes death, Reggie remains tight lipped but suggests the homeless community are of terrified someone. But who..?

THE BILL is a talkbackTHAMES production and a direct commission by ITV. This episode was written by Andrew Alty, directed by Rob Knights and produced by Ciara McIlvenny.

The Bill Volume Four On DVD

More nostalgia is on the way from Network DVD in 2010.
A two-disc title The Bill: Volume 4 featuring old favourites such as Eric Richard, Roger Leach and Barbara Thorn will be released on 15 March, 2010.

RRP is £19.99 but you can currently pre-order at Play.com for £12.99 and get free delivery

This Region 2 release features 30-minute format episodes from 1988 and 1989 and runs for four hours and 30 minutes (approx).

New Year Promo

Dial 999 and check out the future at Sun Hill. 2010 preview. Brilliant.

http://thebill.com/videos/videodetail/item_200069.htm

Unforgiven

THE BILL
Episode 012 - Unforgiven
Thursday 17 December 2009, 21.00 to 22.00, ITV1. Repeated ITV3 on Monday 21 December at 23:00
*Guest starring Pippa Haywood as Trudy Vincent. Ali Bastian’s (PC Sally Armstrong) last episode*

D.C.s Jacob Banks (Patrick Robinson) and Mickey Webb (Chris Simmons) work together to investigate the disappearance of 15 year old Saskia Fuller (Jessica Woods).

They discover that Saskia has recently been in touch with her father, Eamonn (Tony Maudsley), who was imprisoned 13 years ago for murder, but is due for release. Eamonn was an alcoholic who, after a heavy drinking session, beat Paul Vincent to death for no reason and couldn’t recall the attack the following morning.

Following all lines of enquiry, Banksy questions Paul’s widow, Trudy (Pippa Haywood) who is still bitter about her husband’s death and refuses to help the police in any way. Frustrated, Banksy visits Eamonn in prison to tell him his daughter is missing.

Eamonn is horrified and tells the D.C. that Saskia has recently been visiting him and confessed that she had a new boyfriend, Rick. Eamonn hands over Saskia’s letters to Banksy in the hope they hold clues and begs him to find his daughter.

As the investigation continues, Mickey and Banksy discover Saskia’s boyfriend ‘Rick’ to be Richard Vincent (Cary Crankson) – Trudy’s son. Has he kidnapped the teenager in order to avenge his father’s murder…?

Banksy updates Trudy who is stunned that Richard is now the main suspect and is terrified she will lose a son as well as a husband. She agrees to help by going to the station and calling Richard, begging him to turn himself in, but Richard simply hangs up.

The officers grow more concerned that he is planning to hurt Saskia and decide that Trudy is still the best person to convince Richard otherwise. Banksy is tasked with asking Trudy to visit Eamonn - if she can somehow come to terms with what happened to Paul, perhaps she can convince Richard to do the same.

Trudy reluctantly goes to the prison with Banksy but is repulsed by the thought of seeing Eamonn again. When the pair finally meet, the atmosphere is thick with tension and as Eamonn begins to offer some kind of an apology Trudy snaps and launches herself at him. Banksy jumps in to pull her away, but is more concerned than ever that they may never find Saskia...

Meanwhile, uniform, questioning the wisdom of introducing Trudie to her husband’s killer, scour the streets for the missing girl. As tensions build between uniform and CID they spot Richard and a frantic foot chase ensues. To their frustration, Richard escapes, and they re-double their efforts.

Later that day, Richard is finally arrested. In the interview room, Banksy uses all of his skills to try and persuade Richard, who is still grief-stricken and angry, to reveal Saskia’s whereabouts. Will he confess, or is it too late for him and for Saskia?

THE BILL is a talkbackTHAMES production and a direct commission by ITV. This episode was written by Roger Gartland, directed by Nigel Douglas and produced by Ciara McIlvenny.

Twist Of Fate

The Bill
Epsiode 023 - Twist of Fate
Thursday 10 December 2009, 21.00 to 22.00, ITV1. Repeated ITV3 on Monday 14 December at 23:00
*Guest starring Ian Kelsey as Brendan Newlyn*


In a Soho brothel, D.C. Grace Dasari (Amita Dhiri) faces Kathy Merrill (Jessica Harris) who has Martin Taft (Tim Plester) tied to a chair, with a knife held to his throat. Kathy screams that she reported her sister Lisa missing six months ago and that Grace did nothing to find her.

Kathy went undercover after finding out Lisa had become a prostitute and discovered that Martin was an obsessed client of hers. Kathy is certain he knows what happened to Lisa but is finally convinced by Grace to put the knife down and let the police officer do her job.

Back at the station, Grace tries to convince her colleagues that she did everything she could with the evidence available at the time. She explains that after Kathy and Lisa’s mother died, Lisa’s life spiralled out of control, resulting in an abortion at 16 and a heroin addiction.

Grace had discovered Lisa had been clean for a while and assumed she’d left London to start a new life. However, when a body is found in a woodland area Lisa liked to visit, Grace and D.C. Jo Masters (Sally Rogers) are forced to visit Kathy and her father Steve (Michael Bertenshaw).

The pair are devastated when they identify Lisa’s belongings and Grace swears she won’t rest until she discovers what happened to Lisa...

As the investigation continues, the evidence against Martin begins to mount, leaving Grace in no doubt that he was the last person to see Lisa alive. Grace visits Kathy at home to tell her Martin is being charged with her sister’s murder and apologises for not investigating more thoroughly in the first place.

As they talk, Kathy shows Grace some pictures of Lisa that were found in her bag and the detective realises that two photos are missing from the developed roll.

Back at the station, Grace gets them developed and discovers the missing pictures are of Lisa and her school teacher, Brendan Newlyn (Ian Kelsey), who helped them previously with their enquiries.

Grace and Jo dig deeper and discover that Brendan was having an affair with Lisa and he was the father of the baby she aborted. Brendan is brought in for questioning where he admits to the affair and the fact that he left her in the woods the night she died, after a huge argument.

Grace becomes so furious that D.I. Neil Manson (Andrew Lancel) is just about to pull her out of the interview room when Brendan finally cracks and reveals what really happened the night Lisa died...

THE BILL is a talkbackTHAMES production and a direct commission by ITV. This episode was written by Steve Bailie, directed by Tim Leandro and produced by Ciara McIlvenny.

Tackling Bad Guys - That’s Life For Amita

Well, with Collision and I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here finally over, a sense of normality returns to the weekly schedules with the reappearance of The Bill.

Last week I caught up with actress Amita Dhiri aka DC Grace Dasari, the other day to chat about Twist Of Fate. You can find the interview, which was originally published in the Edinburgh Evening News below.

Also, the following titles have been confirmed for the first two episodes of The Bill in 2010: 07.01.10 (ITV3 11.01.09) Be A Man and 14.01.09 (ITV3 18.01.09) Held Responsible

TACKLING BAD GUYS - THAT’S LIFE FOR AMITA

BALLET, not ‘the beat’ was Amita Dhiri’s first love. The 41-year-old who made her name in the BBC drama This Life and is today best known as DC Grace Dasari in The Bill, laughs as she recalls, “I always wanted to be a dancer, but my one defining moment came while walking behind one of my classmates on the way to ballet class, at eight o’clock in the morning.

“She was eating two Big Macs for breakfast and was as thin as a twig. I had a Ryvita in my hand and I just thought, ‘You know what? This is a battle I can never win. I’m never going to be thin enough or long-legged enough to win this one’. That was where my dreams died.”

Instead, Dhiri set her sights on being an actor and in 2007 joined the long-running police drama as the ever calm DC Dasari. However, in tonight’s episode, she finds herself dancing to a very different tune.

Twist Of Fate sees Dasari called to a Soho brothel, where she discovers a woman holding a knife to the throat of a man tied to a chair. The woman tells Dasari that after she reported her sister missing, Sun Hill CID did nothing. By going undercover herself, the woman has discovered that her sister had become a prostitute... the bound man is an obsessed client who she believes knows what happened to her sister.

“Grace is normally very cool, calm and collected, but in this one she kind of losses it a bit,” reveals Dhiri. “Normally she is the one who double checks everything. She doesn’t make mistakes. In this episode she realises that she may have made a mistake and that it is going to cost her dearly.

“Grace had dealt with the missing person case six months earlier and treated it as just another adult who had decided to just move on. She had done her work thoroughly, but not thoroughly enough for the woman holding the hostage. As the story develops, Grace realises that there is more she could have done.”

The episode, marks the return of The Bill to its new Scottish post-watershed slot on ITV3, after a break of four weeks. Dhiri is a fan of the new scheduling.

“We have always dealt with hard hitting issues but now I think we can afford to be a little sparer... we don’t need to be as gentle with our audiences. At eight o’clock you maybe had to explain it more frequently and underline things a little more often.

After the watershed you have an audience who have already put the kids to bed, put the dishes in the dishwasher and are ready to sit down with a cup of tea and concentrate. They are with you in quite a thorough way, so instead of having to keep reiterating things, you have to keep up with them and make sure you that you are not too slow for them.”

The new approach also allows writers to develop the regulars as more fully formed characters.
“You definitely see a different side to Grace in this episode,” agrees Dhiri. “You see that she doesn’t cope very well with having holes picked in her procedure and how she does thing. Although she doesn’t run away from the problem, there are a couple of moments when you do see that she is not as in control as you expect her to be.”

So, with two and a half years of pounding the Sun Hill beat now on her service record and an insight into the life of a CID officer, could Dhiri do the job for real?

“Oh God. I don’t know if I could,” she admits candidly. “I have absolute admiration for the police, but I think they deal with such difficult subjects that I don’t know if I could. The more I learn about what they have to do the more I am in awe of what them.”

The Bill: Twist of Fate, ITV3, tonight, 11pm.