Citizendia

Dixon of Dock Green

Jack Warner as Constable George Dixon
FormatPolice procedural
Created byTed Willis
StarringJack Warner
Country of originFlag of the United Kingdom United Kingdom
No. The police procedural is a sub-genre of the mystery story which attempts to convincingly depict the activities of a Police force as they investigate Crimes Edward Henry Willis Baron Willis ( 13 January 1914 - 22 December 1992 and they had a son and a daughter This article is about Jack Warner the English film and television actor The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located  of episodes430
Production
Running time25 minutes & 45 minutes
Broadcast
Original channelBBC
Original run9 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. Events 455 - Roman military commander Avitus is proclaimed Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. Year 1955 ( MCMLV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1955 Gregorian calendar) Events 305 - Diocletian and Maximian retire from the office of Roman Emperor. Year 1976 ( MCMLXXVI) was a Leap year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. A television program (US television programme (UK or television show (U Despite being a drama series, it was initially produced by the BBC's light entertainment department. Light entertainment is a term used to describe a broad range of usually televisual performances

Contents

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. Z-Cars (sometimes written as Z Cars) was a British Television drama series centred on the work of beat police in the fictional The Bill is a long-running British Television Police procedural, named after a slang term for the police. 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. A police station (also called stationhouse) is a Building which serves as the Headquarters of a Police force or unit which serves a specific London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. 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. In the United States, larceny is a Common law Crime involving Theft. 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.

Outline of characters and plots

The main character, Police Constable George Dixon, played by Jack Warner, was an old-style British "bobby" (policeman). A constable is a person holding a particular office most commonly in law enforcement. This article is about Jack Warner the English film and television actor The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located A police officer (also known as a policeman or policewoman) is a warranted employee of a Police force. 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. Year 1950 ( MCML) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The Blue Lamp is a British Crime film released in early 1950 by Ealing Studios directed by Basil Dearden and produced Sir Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde ( 28 March, 1921  &ndash 8 May, 1999) better known by his Stage name However, it was decided to bring him back to life for a television series, written by Ted Willis. Edward Henry Willis Baron Willis ( 13 January 1914 - 22 December 1992 and they had a son and a daughter

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. A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience primarily by making them laugh 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). WIDOW is a full-length Album recorded by British rock band Ritual released in 1983 Billie Whitelaw, CBE (born June 6, 1932) is a distinguished English actress of both stage and film

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. Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language

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). Jimmy Hanley ( 22 October 1918 - 13 January 1970) was a British Actor. He was Director of Productions for the Bournemouth Theatre Company (1965-1966 The Criminal Investigation Department (CID is the branch of all Territorial police forces within the British Police and many other Commonwealth police

By the end of the series, Warner was elderly and George Dixon had been promoted to Station Sergeant and given a desk job. Station Sergeant was a rank in the London Metropolitan Police and continues as a rank in the Hong Kong Police Force. 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. Radio is the transmission of signals by Modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible Light. David Calder (born 1 August 1946) is a British actor probably best known for his performances on Television. David Tennant (born David John McDonald; 18 April 1971 is a Scottish Actor. This article is about the actress for other uses see Charles Brooks (disambiguation. A second series followed in 2006, with Hamish Clark replacing Tennant owing to the latter's Doctor Who filming commitments. Hamish Clark was born in Broughty Ferry, Dundee. He is a Scottish actor famous for playing the part of Duncan McKay in the BBC The Tenth Doctor is the name given to the tenth incarnation of the Fictional character known as the Doctor seen on screen in the long-running

Cast

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. Sir Michael Elias Balcon KBE ( 19 May 1896 &ndash 17 October 1977) was an English Film producer, known for his work Birmingham ( ˈbɜːmɪŋəm Ber -ming-um George Dixon (1820 &ndash 24 January 1898) was a councillor Mayor and MP in Birmingham, England.

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. The Airbase is a Black-and-white British sitcom that on BBC2 in 1965 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]

Trivia

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, p 45. ISBN 0 9508895 0 4.  

External links

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