Remembering the gritty and critically acclaimed documentary-style police series The Cops filmed in Bolton
18:12, 13 Sep 2025Updated 18:12, 13 Sep 2025
BBC police drama The Cops was set in the fictional town of Stanton(Image: BBC)
A largely forgotten police drama created by the BBC was created to rival ITV’s The Bill before it was scrapped.
The Bill was one of the longest running and most successful police dramas ever created, running from October 1984 to August 2010. The show was a cornerstone of British TV for 26 years, showcasing the gritty realities of police work directly into our living rooms.
Trying to match the success of the hit ITV police soap, BBC show The Cops was billed as a rival to The Bill. Set in the fictional Greater Manchester town of Stanton, the series created by the time behind TV shows This Life and Cardiac Arrest adopted an even more realistic, grittier approach, adopting shaky documentary-style camerawork.
The show’s naturalism was reflected in its unflinching themes, that included force corruption and officer drug use, from the very first episode broadcast on BBC2 in October 1998.
Greater Manchester Police helped the writers and actors with their research for the show which was filmed in locations around Bolton. The show’s actors even shadowed officers in Bolton to prepare their roles.
However, following the show being broadcast, in October 1998 the Manchester Evening News reported in that the force were “extremely disappointed” with what they heard about some of the storylines.
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From the very start, The Cops was highlighted as possibly “one of the most controversial programmes of the decade”.
The first episode showed a young probationary policewoman snorting cocaine in the packed toilet of a local nightclub just 30 minutes before her shift started.
Sex, drugs, racism, police brutality, death in custody and lies in court were also part of the show’s storylines set in the fictional northern town.
Regarding the show’s controversy, BBC2’s controller Mark Thompson said: “It’s about the police and their work, which it handles with a new kind of realism and intensity.”
Adding: “It takes you to people and places you just don’t normally see on TV.”
Actor John Henshaw played ‘dinosaur’ PC Roy Bramwell in The Cops(Image: Sean Hansford Manchester Evening)
One of the show’s standout characters PC Roy Bramwell played by Manchester-born actor John Henshaw. Described as a police “dinosaur”, PC Bramwell was portrayed as a dying breed of copper who did things the old fashioned way.
Describing his character, the actor said: “Everything is very black and white to him. He thinks he knows who the villains are, and when they are in the wrong he thinks they should be brought in, given a good hiding and then locked up.”
The cast was made up of a host of actors hailing from Greater Manchester.
Rochdale actor Parvez Qadir, who studied drama in Salford, played the role of PC Jaz Chundara. Salford actor, Danny Seward, played PC Dean Wishaw.
Bolton actress Katy Cavanagh, who went on to play Julie Carp in Coronation Street, played drug-taking rookie WPC Mel Draper.
Another actress in the first series of the show who went on to become a staple on the cobbles was Sue Cleaver who played duty sergeant Standish. Sue went on to play Eileen Grimshaw in Corrie for 25 years.
Sue Cleaver played Eileen Grimshaw in Coronation Street for 25 years(Image: ITV)
The show was a critically acclaimed hit and attracted strong viewing figures. However, considering the controversy surrounding the its themes, Greater Manchester Police withdrew their cooperation for the second series.
Despite this, the show won back-to-back BAFTAs in the Best Drama Series category in 1999 and 2000 and was nominated for a third time in 2001.
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Critical reception was also positive, with Mark Walker for Amazon writing: “It’s grim up North for the cops in The Cops, the BBC’s answer to ITV’s long-running police drama series The Bill. Bolton, Lancashire doubles for the fictional Northern town of Stanton; Bolton’s not such a bad place in reality, but here it looks like war-torn Beirut.
“Unlike their soft Southern counterparts, the cops in Stanton swear copiously, get involved in fistfights and generally behave badly. Little wonder when you contemplate the grim reality of their daily round among all the ‘dirty, thieving, lying scumbags’ they have to deal with (both criminals and their police colleagues).
Cast of BBC’s The Cops
“Series one opens as it means to continue with probationary PC Mel Draper snorting cocaine in a club before dashing off to start her beat. Among a plethora of other strong characters there’s tough-but-vulnerable WPC Natalie; Roy the grizzled old-fashioned bobby who’s as sick of the namby-pamby modern police force as he is of the criminal ‘scumbags’.
“An ineffectual Chief Super who talks in PR-speak (‘facilitating proactive client-orientated policing’); and a new Sergeant fresh from the Met with a complicated history of his own. Sex, crime and drugs prove to be a potent combination–and that’s just within the police station!”
The critic went on to praise the show for having the character-driven tension of a soap, “combined with the voyeurism and unpredictability of docudrama”. An original combination, he said, which made for “compulsive viewing”.
Despite the show’s success, both critically and in terms of ratings, especially first two series, it only lasted three series.
Thankfully for fans of the show, all 24 episodes of The Cops can still be viewed on BBC iPlayer.