The Bill/Trivia

• Billing Displacement: For the first three seasons, Eric Richard (as Sgt Cryer) and John Salthouse (Inspector Galloway) were always given top billing in the end credits. Not entirely surprising, as those two characters could probably very legitimately be seen as the central stars in the early years. After Salthouse left the series in its fourth season and the format changed to half hour episodes, the tradition continued for another few years with Eric Richard always recieving top billing, regardless of whether Cryer was actually the central character of that given episode or not.
• Executive Meddling: The format has been gradually fiddled about with ever since the decision to move to half-hour episodes in 1988, eventually getting to the point where it (arguably) no longer resembled its previous self.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Cathy Madford" for Cathy Bradford.
  • "PC Gabriel Cunt" for PC Gabriel Kent. Watch any single episode that features this character, and the reasons for this nickname will become immediately obvious.
  • "Spam" Nixon for Samantha Nixon.
• Hey, It's That Guy!: Nearly every actor in Britain has a bit-part in The Bill at some point of their career. It's said as a joke that if you have three British actors at a table, two of them will have been in The Bill (the other one was in Taggart).
  • Yep, Zain Nadir is Tarin Faroush.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Steven Hartley (Tom Chandler) has done a lot of voice over work.
• The Other Darrin: Roy Galloway played by Robert Pugh in the 1983 pilot episode, played by John Salthouse in the series proper.
• Outlived Its Creator: Geoff Mcqueen, who wrote the original Pilot Episode and created the series, died in 1995. The series he created kept going until 2010.
• Screwed by the Network
• You Look Familiar