The Sweeney

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 derives from "Sweeney Todd," the Cockney rhyming slang for "Flying Squad," referring to the fictitious demon barber. Shortened to "The Sweeney," the term was used by London's criminal underworld in the mid-20th century to refer to the police. 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.