''Police 2020'' is a one-off television pilot, first broadcast in 1997, that was set to be the first episode of an ongoing

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

crime drama Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combin ...

series. Set in the near future, the pilot starred

Liam Cunningham Liam Cunningham (born 2 June 1961) is an Irish actor. He is known for playing Davos Seaworth in the HBO epic-fantasy series ''Game of Thrones''. Cunningham has been nominated for the London Film Critics' Circle Award, the British Independe ...

as DCI Billy O'Connell, the head of a police nightshift force, who is tasked with tackling an armed suspect, Eddie Longshaw (

Keith Barron Keith Barron (8 August 1934 – 15 November 2017) was an English actor and television presenter who appeared in films and on television from 1961 until 2017. His television roles included the police drama ''The Odd Man'', the sitcom ''Duty Free ...

), who takes a group of Russian immigrants hostage in an elevator after blaming the immigrant population for an outbreak of tuberculosis that took the lives of most of his family. However, whilst conducting his investigation, O'Connell and a close colleague, Marsha Beagley (

Rachel Davies Rachel Davies is an English actress. She has numerous television credits to her name, including ''Boon'' (1986), '' A Little Bit Of Lippy'' (1989), ''Emmerdale'' (1993–94), '' Band of Gold'' (1995–96), '' Hillsborough'' (1996), and '' The Ch ...

), are both in the process of competing for a promotion, and are being monitored throughout the crisis to see who performs better, unaware that their superiors are taking advantage of the situation to pit them against each other. Although the feature-length pilot gained much press attention, a full series was not commissioned.

Cast

as DCI Billy O'Connell *

as DCI Marsha Beagley *

Tim Dantay Tim Dantay (born 1963) is a British actor who was born in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, ...

as DI Brian Sagar * Maureen Hibbert as DI Christine Baker * Nick Reding as DS Keanan * Ken Bradshaw as DS Dewhurst *

Jane Slavin Jane Slavin (born 11 March 1970) is an English actress and novelist. Slavin was the winner of the 1989 BBC Radio Drama Carleton Hobbs Award. She has appeared on television in ''Lewis'', '' Doctors'' as Gayle Buckley, ''Peak Practice'', ''Alway ...

as DC Fiona Muir * Stephen Hackett as DC Steven Springfield * Saira Todd as Katline Voikevich *

as Eddie Longshaw *

Ken Bones Ken Bones (born 11 June 1947) is an English actor. He is a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Career Theatre Bones trained at RADA between 1971 and 1973, where he won the Honours Diploma, the Ronson Prize, the Kendal Award, the Poel ...

as Commander Johnson *

Esther Hall Esther Jane Hall (born 28 August 1970) is an English actress who has appeared in a number of television dramas. Early life Born in Manchester in 1970 and brought up in Cheshire, she took A levels in Manchester before training in theatre arts ...

as Julie Ostrovsky * Velibor Topic as Mikki Ostrovsky *

Andrew Knott Andrew Knott (born 22 November 1979) is a British actor. He played Dirtbox in ''Gavin & Stacey'', and Dickon Sowerby in the 1993 film '' The Secret Garden''. Life and career Knott was born in Salford. His first acting was done in British televi ...

as Scully * Rad Lazar as Uri Pacovsky * Ivan Marevich as Andreyev *

David Prosho Dave Prosho (born 1965, Leicestershire) is an English actor. He studied drama at University of Winchester (then known as King Alfred's College) on the Drama, Theatre and Television Studies course, from 1983 to 1986. Prosho is best known for hi ...

as Dr. Fortnum

References

External links

* 1997 television films 1997 films 1997 drama films Television pilots not picked up as a series 1990s British films British drama television films {{tv-drama-film-stub