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[Steve Russell]

QPR Screen References: No.16 – ‘The Sweeney’ – Episode: ‘I Want The Man’

Although there is no verbal reference to the R’s, this one is included because of
the superb visual shots of Loftus Road. This episode is from Series 2 and was first
transmitted at 9pm on 10th November, 1975.

The opening scene shows Popeye, Regan’s ‘Snout’, calling him from a phone box
facing towards Julie’s restaurant in Portland Road about two suspects who have
just entered.

He is then bundled into a car by some villains before Regan arrives with his team.

They burst into the restaurant where Frankie Little, played by Roy Kinnear, is meeting
Christine, the girlfriend of the gang’s leader. They take him away after the girl had done
a runner out the back into Hippodrome Place and discarding her wig in the process.

Whilst the investigation is going on, we see Regan emerging from the South Africa Road Stand
to question Popeye’s mate, Jimmy Dancer, who’s sweeping the Loft terrace.

When he sees him walking towards him, he legs it, but Regan anticipates which way he’s making
his escape and catches him at the back of the Loft. As they walk up the steps back to
the Loft terrace,

Jimmy scampers off again only to be finally apprehended in the South Africa Road Stand where he
continues to question him about Popeye.

Frankie Little eventually does a deal with Regan and then meets up with the gang at
their hideaway.

Jimmy Dancer gets a serious hiding and Frankie phones through a coded message to his
daughter which Regan’s boss, Det. Chief Inspector Haskins, works out that the gang’s next
target is a security van delivering used notes. They attack the van but Regan and his team
soon arrive on the scene and after a fight they are all arrested.

The restaurant is on the corner of Portland Road and Clarendon Road and according to the
unofficial website of ‘The Sweeney’, unusually, it’s referred to by its real name.

Although not shown, the doorway to the left of the restaurant was used for a while as
the entrance to the Winchester Club in ‘Minder’. Later, there is a scene where Regan and Carter
meet up in their squad cars and this is in Colet Gardens, Hammersmith.
Their excellent website can be found at: www.thesweeney.info/

Roy Kinnear was only 54 when he died of a heart attack in a Madrid hospital following
a fall from a horse whilst filming. ‘The Return Of The Musketeers.’ Henry Woolf plays
Jimmy Dancer and is well known for his portrayal of Frankie Barrow in ‘Steptoe’.

[steveqpr881]

Get yer trousers on, you're nicked!