Law & Order (often referred to as Law and Order) is a British television crime drama series, comprising four connected plays written by G. F. Newman and directed by Les Blair, which was first broadcast on 6 April 1978 on BBC Two. Each of the four stories within the series is told from a different perspective, including that of the Detective, the Villain, the Brief and the Prisoner. The series was highly controversial upon its release due to its depiction of a corrupt British law enforcement and legal system.

Cast

A Detective's Tale

A Villain's Tale

A Brief's Tale

A Prisoner's Tale

Episodes

Controversy

The series was highly controversial upon its release due to its depiction of corrupt British law enforcement and legal systems. There was such an outcry regarding the series in the British press that the BBC was prevented from trying to sell the series abroad. John Cooper, QC, writing in The Times in 2018, described the series as 'seismic', saying that 'at the time [the plays] provoked calls from MPs for Newman to be arrested for sedition and the summoning of the director-general of the BBC to the Home Office to explain himself.'

Critical reception

A review by Matteo Sedazzari in May 2018 concluded: 'it's such a shame that the BBC seriously do not produce dramas like this anymore, thought-provoking, brutal and powerful', and Adam Sweeting in The Spectator described it as 'compellingly plausible'. Jasper Rees wrote for the Arts Desk in May 2018 'Law and Order more than earns this 40th-anniversary trip down memory's stinking back alley'. The series was discussed on BBC Radio 4's programme Thinking Allowed on 23 May 2018, with the host Laurie Taylor talking to criminologist Tim Newburn and Charlotte Brunsden, Professor of Film & Television Studies at the University of Warwick, along with the author, to engage with the question of 'the extent to which... [the series] created a public and political debate which produced positive reform'. Among the series' successors was the BBC TV series Police.

Subsequent broadcasts

For the series' thirtieth anniversary in April 2008, it was released on a limited edition DVD via 2|Entertain. In April 2018, BBC Four announced that the series would be rebroadcast on television for the first time to mark the series' fortieth anniversary. This statement was inaccurate, as a full repeat had previously been broadcast on BBC4 from 24 March to 14 April 2009 and it had also been repeated in March 1980. The 2018 repeats began at 10:00pm on Thursdays from 12 April 2018. It was further broadcast on 10 July 2024, preceded by G.F. Newman's reflections, explanation of what inspired him, and the responses of police officers at the time.

Book series

In parallel, the 'Law & Order' series of books was a trilogy of works written by Newman, first published by Sphere in 1977 and then reprinted in Sphere Paperbacks in 1978. The trilogy consists of 'A Detective's Tale', ISBN 9780722163498, 'A Villain's Tale', ISBN 978-0722163634, and 'A Prisoner's Tale', ISBN 978-0722163641. An omnibus edition including all three was published in 1984 by HarperCollins, ISBN 9780586057834.