The Sweeney
| The Sweeney | |
|---|---|
Title card (series 1–3) | |
| Created by | Ian Kennedy Martin |
| Starring | John Thaw Dennis Waterman Garfield Morgan |
| Theme music composer | Harry South |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| No. of series | 4 |
| No. of episodes | 53 |
| Production | |
| Executive producers | Lloyd Shirley George Taylor |
| Producer | Ted Childs |
| Production locations | West London South East England |
| Running time | 50 minutes |
| Production company | Euston Films Ltd for Thames Television |
| Budget | £40,000 per episode |
| Original release | |
| Network | ITV |
| Release | 2 January 1975 – 28 December 1978 |
| Related | |
| Regan (1974) | |
The Sweeney is a British police drama television series focusing on two members of the Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police specialising in tackling armed robbery and violent crime in London. It stars John Thaw as Detective Inspector Jack Regan and Dennis Waterman as his partner, Detective Sergeant George Carter. It was produced by the Thames Television subsidiary Euston Films for broadcast on the ITV network in the United Kingdom from 2 January 1975 to 28 December 1978.
The programme's title comes from the Cockney rhyming slang term "Sweeney Todd", used to refer to the Flying Squad by London's criminal fraternity in the mid 20th century.
The popularity of the series in the UK led to two feature films – Sweeney! (1977) and Sweeney 2 (1978) – both starring Thaw and Waterman, and a later film, The Sweeney (2012), starring Ray Winstone as Regan and Ben Drew as Carter.