Scott & Bailey is a British police procedural series that debuted on ITV on 29 May 2011 and concluded on 27 April 2016. The series stars Suranne Jones, Lesley Sharp, Amelia Bullmore, Nicholas Gleaves, Danny Miller and Pippa Haywood. The show, mainly written by Sally Wainwright, revolves around the personal and professional lives of detectives Janet Scott (played by Sharp) and Rachel Bailey (played by Jones). Both characters are members of the Syndicate Nine Major Incident Team (MIT) of the fictional Manchester Metropolitan Police.
Despite continued good reception and strong viewership, the series was cancelled after an abbreviated fifth series in 2016 for creative reasons. In March 2018, Canadian TV remade the series as The Detail but the show was cancelled after one season.
Episodes
Cast and characters
Starring Lesley Sharp as Detective Constable Janet Scott, a Detective Constable within Syndicate 9 who also briefly acts as Detective Sergeant during Series 3. Suranne Jones as Acting Detective Inspector Rachel Bailey, an officer within Syndicate 9 who serves as a Detective Constable from Series 1 to Series 3 before being promoted to Detective Sergeant and Deputy Senior Investigating Officer of Syndicate 9 in Series 4. She is later promoted to Acting Detective Inspector in Series 5 and concurrently serves as the Senior Investigating Officer of Syndicate 9. Amelia Bullmore as Detective Chief Inspector Gill Murray (Series 1–4), the Senior Investigating Officer of Syndicate 9. Nicholas Gleaves as Detective Sergeant Andy Roper (Series 1–2), a Detective Sergeant and the Deputy Senior Investigating Officer of Syndicate 9. Danny Miller as Detective Sergeant Rob Waddington (Series 3–4), a Detective Sergeant and the Deputy Senior Investigating Officer of Syndicate 9. Pippa Haywood as Detective Superintendent Julie Dodson (Series 5; supporting, Series 2–4), an officer who serves as a Detective Chief Inspector and Senior Investigating Officer of Syndicate 3 in Series 2. She is later promoted to Detective Superintendent by Series 3 and gains oversight of multiple syndicates, including Syndicate 9, within the Murder Investigation Department.
Also starring David Prosho as Detective Constable Ian "Mitch" Mitchell, a Detective Constable within Syndicate 9. Delroy Brown as Detective Constable Lee Broadhurst, a Detective Constable within Syndicate 9. Tony Mooney as Detective Constable Pete Readyough, a Detective Constable within Syndicate 9. Ben Batt as Detective Constable Kevin Lumb (Series 1–3), a Detective Constable within Syndicate 9. Rupert Graves as Nick Savage (Series 1), a CPS barrister. Sean Maguire as Police Constable Sean McCartney (Series 2–3), a Police Constable within Manchester Metropolitan Police and later boyfriend/husband of Rachel Bailey. Steve Toussaint as Detective Superintendent Will Pemberton (Series 4), a Detective Superintendent within the Vice Unit and boyfriend of Rachel Bailey. Danny Webb as Detective Constable Chris Crowley (Series 4), a Detective Constable within Syndicate 9 and later boyfriend of Janet Scott. Jing Lusi as Detective Constable Anna Ram (Series 5), a Detective Constable within Syndicate 9.
Recurring Sally Lindsay as Alison Bailey, the daughter of Sharon Bailey and sister of Rachel and Dominic Bailey. Harriet Waters as Taisie Scott, the daughter of Adrian and Janet Scott. Tony Pitts as Adrian Scott (Series 1–3), the husband of Janet Scott and father of Taisie and Elise Scott. Vincent Regan as Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Murray (Series 1–2), the Head of the Review Unit whose team are occasionally called in to review the progress of Syndicate 9 in murder enquiries. He is also the ex-husband of Gill Murray. Kevin Doyle as Geoff Hastings (Series 1–2), an old school friend of Janet Scott who brings a cold case to her attention. Julia Deakin (Series 2) and Judy Holt (Series 3–5) as "Scary" Mary Jackson, a Home Office pathologist. Judith Barker as Dorothy Parsons (Series 2–5), the mother of Janet Scott. Shannon Flynn (Series 1) and Olivia Fenton (Series 2–4) as Elise Scott, the daughter of Adrian and Janet Scott. Liam Boyle as Dominic Bailey (Series 2), the son of Sharon Bailey and brother of Rachel and Alison Bailey. Tracie Bennett as Sharon Bailey (Series 3-4), the mother of Rachel, Alison and Dominic Bailey. Nicola Walker as Helen Bartlett (Series 3), a person of interest in an investigation surrounding her parents, Joe and Eunice Bevan. George Costigan as Joe Bevan (Series 3), a person of interest to Syndicate 9 following the death of his wife Eunice Bevan. Gabrielle Reidy as Assistant Chief Constable Karen Zelinski (Series 3), a senior ranking officer within the Manchester Metropolitan Police. Ellie Haddington as Evie Pritchard (Series 4), a person of interest to Syndicate 9 following the death of a missing man near her farm. Gregg Chillin as Detective Sergeant Neil Simpson (Series 5), an officer within the Serious Crime Unit.
Production Scott & Bailey was commissioned after the concept was introduced to executive producer Nicola Shindler, who brought it to writer Sally Wainwright. The series is produced by Manchester-based Red Production Company and is largely filmed in the Greater Manchester area.
Concept Scott & Bailey is based on an original idea by Suranne Jones and Sally Lindsay, with Jones commenting that there needed to be more roles for women "that weren't wife-of, sidekick-to, mother-of, mistress-to, etc." Jones remarked, "We were just chatting away over a bottle of wine in a pub" when the idea came to fruition. Lindsay, a fan of television programmes such as Cagney & Lacey, was interested in the concept of a programme detailing the lives of two professional women. Jones later spoke of the programme, saying it is "the Cagney & Lacey of Manchester", though she acknowledged that Scott & Bailey as a drama was more "gritty" and "real".
Upon taking the idea to Nicola Shindler of Red Productions, Shindler contacted Sally Wainwright, who wrote a script for an episode and, according to Jones, they "loved it". Despite the positive reaction, the project "kind of got a bit lost" until ITV discovered it and requested that Wainwright rewrite the script.
Subsequently, Wainwright paired up with Diane Taylor, a former Detective Inspector from Greater Manchester Police, to create the programme, and the production expanded from Jones and Lindsay's original concept. From Taylor's perspective, police procedurals were often filled with not only technical inaccuracies, but what she felt were inaccuracies of how officers behaved, saying: "that's what really irritates me in other dramas – detectives crying over dead bodies and getting drunk senseless. You'd last about two weeks". She said, of her time as a police officer in comparison to portrayals on television, that "reality is much more interesting. I could pull a thousand cases out of my head people would say would never happen. People need drama because they would not believe the reality".
Production team Scott & Bailey is produced by Manchester-based Red Production Company, which itself is majority owned by StudioCanal following an acquisition estimated at £30 million in December 2013. Nicola Shindler, who founded the company in 1998, is the programme's executive producer alongside writer Sally Wainwright and Tom Sherry. When speaking of Shindler, Wainwright said: "Nicola is just a genius. She makes you raise your game. So if you're good, she'll make you better".
The role of producer was undertaken by Yvonne Francas for Series 1, and from Series 2 to Series 3, Tom Sherry. Sherry, who has worked for Red Productions for over 15 years, described his job as "the opportunity to meddle in all departments – it's about being able to have a passable stab at everyone's job and to be able to empathise with what they're trying to achieve". For the production of Series 4, Sherry undertook the role of executive producer alongside Wainwright and Shindler, while the position of producer is staffed by Juliet Charlesworth. For the fifth series, filmed in 2015, Suranne Jones became an executive producer alongside Shindler.
The involvement of Diane Taylor as a consultant producer is credited with maintaining Scott & Baileys "rigorous authenticity". According to Jessamy Calkin of The Telegraph, "the attention to detail is more extreme on this series, say many of the crew, than others they have worked on". During the filming of Unforgiven in 2008 (written by Wainwright and also starring Suranne Jones), Wainwright was told to meet Taylor by Grant Montgomery, the show's designer. After meeting, the production was given the green light by ITV and the script was largely re-written, with Wainwright commenting: "I wasn't writing a single line of dialogue that Diane hadn't influenced". Wainwright is responsible for writing the majority of episodes.
Amelia Bullmore, who plays Gill Murray, wrote three episodes; Wainwright had wanted to get other writers involved in the process. For her first episode as writer, "Bullmore was given a brief – that everything must be from Scott and Bailey's point of view – and she was given a murder". Though she had been a professional writer for almost two decades, Scott and Bailey marked the first instance of Bullmore writing and starring in the same production. Due to Wainwright's increased workload on her other drama series Last Tango in Halifax and Happy Valley, Bullmore was chosen to be the head writer for Scott and Baileys fourth series in 2014. She was joined on the writing team by Lee Warburton, who wrote two episodes of the fourth series. and returned to write Scott & Bailey's fifth series in 2015.
The directing of Scott & Bailey is undertaken in a method whereby "each director directs a 'block' of two or three episodes, dictated by the schedule – when each episode has finished shooting, the director goes into the edit and a new director takes over for the next block", according to Calkin. The most prolific director of Scott & Bailey is Morag Fullerton, who directed seven episodes.
Casting Jones, who had always envisaged herself playing Rachel Bailey when the idea of the project came in to mind, was given the role, though at the programme's pre-production stages the character had a different first name, Cathy. It was originally intended that Lindsay would star with Jones in Scott & Bailey, but she became pregnant with twins, so the role of Janet was given to Lesley Sharp instead; Lindsay received the smaller role of Rachel's sister, Alison. Lindsay approved of Sharp playing the role; Jones also felt pleased at the prospect of working with Sharp, saying "I was really excited on the day of the read-through". Regarding the casting of her husband Nicholas Gleaves as Scott's lover DS Andy Roper, Sharp stated that it was not a contributing factor in his casting, stating: "Nick's an actor and I'm an actress — we don't have the same agent. There's a script with a role in it that was right for him and it so happened that there was a role that was right for me and we both got cast, but it wasn't a conversation that we had that it would be a good idea if we did a television series together because that's not the way life works".
Both Rachel and Janet are Detective Constables in the Major Incident Team of the fictional Manchester Metropolitan Police Service, with the team headed by DCI Gill Murray (Amelia Bullmore), who is loosely based on Diane Taylor. Producers were undecided on what age DCI Murray would be, but had originally pictured an actress older than Bullmore. After auditioning, Bullmore returned a month later, intent on playing Murray "tough", however, when meeting casting director Beverley Keogh in the toilets beforehand, Bullmore recounted that Keogh said to her: "That's not what we've got you back for. We were interested in seeing a warmer side".