Cop Shop

Cop Shop is also an informal term for a police station

Cop Shop was a long running Australian police drama television series produced by Crawford Productions that ran for eight seasons between November 1977 and July 1984. It comprised 582 one-hour episodes.

The show

The show revolved around the everyday operations of both the uniformed police officers and the plain-clothes detectives of the fictional Riverside Police Station. It also took a significant interest in the private lives of the characters.

While many Crawfords Productions police dramas combined videotaped interiors with location footage shot on 16mm film, Cop Shop was shot entirely on video, including external scenes.

Two one-hour episodes were broadcast each week and featured a specific police investigation and a guest cast whose stories formed a self-contained narrative block. Alongside this the ongoing narratives of the regular characters continued in longer, more open-ended soap opera-style story threads. This same soap opera-drama series hybrid format was also used in the series Skyways, A Country Practice and Carson's Law.

After an eight-year run, the show completed filming its last episode on 22 December 1983 and the final episodes were screened in the first half of 1984.

Awards

Cop Shop won many awards including Logie Awards for most popular series and most popular actors, with Peter Adams and Paula Duncan winning multiple times. The show also won a number of other industry awards.

Cast

During its long run, many of Australia's new and established actors appeared in the show.

• Peter Adams as Det Jeffrey "JJ" Johnson
• Tony Bonner as Det Snr Const Don McKenna
• Liz Burch as Liz Cameron
• Terence Donovan as Det Sgt Vic Cameron
• Paula Duncan as Det Const Danni Francis
• Nicholas Eadie as Const Sam Phillips
• Alan Fletcher as Const Frank Rossi
• Billie Hammerberg as Insp Joyce Stratton
• Alwyn Kurts as Sgt Reg Wallis
• John Lee as Insp Ian Timms
• Joanna Lockwood as Valerie Johnson
• John McTernan as Sgt Tom Shannon
• George Mallaby as Det Snr Sgt Glen Taylor
• Terry Norris as Sgt Eric O'Reilly
• John Orcsik as Det Mike Georgiou
• Louise Philip as Claire O'Reilly
• Gregory Ross as Const Tony Benjamin
• Bill Stalker as Det Sgt Peter Fanelli. Stalker had previously appeared as Fanelli in the Crawford series Skyways.
• Lynda Stoner as Const Amanda King
• Olga Tamara as Det Const Julie Mitchell
• Gil Tucker as Const Roy Baker
• Rowena Wallace as Pamela Taylor
• John Walton as Terry Linford Jones
• Patrick Ward as Const Peter Fleming

Producers and directors

• Hector Crawford - Executive Producer
• Ian Crawford - Executive Producer
• Ian Crawford - Producer
• Terry Stapleton - Producer
• Marie Trevor - Producer
• Philip East - Director
• Charles "Bud" Tingwell - Director

External links

• Crawford Productions
• Aussie Soap Archive: Cop Shop
• Cop Shop at IMDb
• Cop Shop at the National Film and Sound Archive
• Cop Shop - Ep 485 at Australian Screen Online

• "Cop Shop", Australian Television Information Archive. 15 July 1999. Retrieved 10 September 2013.
• "Cop Shop", Australian Screen. Retrieved 10 September 2013.