Z-Cars (sometimes written as Z Cars) is a British television drama series centred on the work of beat police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby in the outskirts of Liverpool in Lancashire. Produced by the BBC and screened on BBC Television (renamed BBC1 in 1964), it debuted in January, 1962 and ran for 16 years until September, 1978. Owing to an administrative quirk, for the first few years it was produced by the BBC's documentary ...
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Z-Cars (sometimes written as Z Cars) is a British television drama series centred on the work of beat police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby in the outskirts of Liverpool in Lancashire. Produced by the BBC and screened on BBC Television (renamed BBC1 in 1964), it debuted in January, 1962 and ran for 16 years until September, 1978. Owing to an administrative quirk, for the first few years it was produced by the BBC's documentary department rather than the drama department.
The programme was created by writers Troy Kennedy Martin and Allan Prior with producer Elwyn Jones, to create a more realistic portrayal of policing than had been seen on British television before. This was in contrast to the BBC's established police drama, Dixon of Dock Green, which portrayed a 'safe' and 'cosy' image of a 'British bobby'.
The main writers included John Hopkins (who also became script editor) and Alan Plater. The writing team created a 'kitchen sink realism' style little seen on...
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