The Bill stars reunite in uniform for virtual party to mark show's return

The cast of ITV drama The Bill have reunited in uniform at the fictional Sun Hill Police Station, 10 years after the long running ITV drama wrapped

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Stars of The Bill took a virtual trip down memory lane over the weekend to celebrate the iconic show being made available to fans.

The much-loved police procedural ITV drama series followed the lives of policemen and women working at Sun Hill Police Station in East London and ran for 26 years from 1984 to August 2010.

The reunited original cast featured fan favourites Trudie Goodwin (WPC June Ackland), Chris Ellison (DI Frank Burnside), Eric Richard (Sgt Bob Cryer), Mark Wingett (PC Jim Carver) and Graham Cole (PC Tony Stamp), who all chatted via a video link.

TV star Trudie, who was back in her uniform, confessed the early instalments look very different to today's policing.

The Bill actress, now 68, explained: "I mean, WPCs had to carry handbags and so you’d be chasing a villain, and you’d have a handbag over your shoulder, and you’d have a skirt on, of course, which meant you couldn't really climb fences.

"WPCs were there to look after women and children, and that was still true when we started The Bill.

"I hope June Ackland gave as good as she got though, that was what I tried to do – I was very determined to make her a career woman."

Trudie added that the most noticeable difference would be the "lack of police on the streets’" nowadays, but she thought otherwise it wouldn't be markedly different with the exception of seeing more female and ethnic minority officers now too.

Eric, 79, better known as Bob Cryer, and Chris, who played DI Frank Burnside, said they both had fond memories of making the show more than 35 years ago.

Chris, 73, said: "There were no stars on The Bill, there were no egos, it was happy."

The actor recalled shooting car scenes "with our trousers off, not because we were too hot, just bored."

Eric added: "Way back in ’84, the energy was entirely different. We kind of knew each other in a way and there was a real friendliness."

When discussing how The Bill would look like today, Chris jokingly admitted that "If it was the same cast it would look like One Foot In The Grave."

Graham, who played PC Tony Stamp, remembered working alongside Keira Knightly in one of her first acting jobs.

He joked with his former co-stars: "Has she ever phoned? No."

Hollywood A-lister Keira appeared on the show in 1995 when she was just 10 years old.

Other famous faces who enjoyed roles on the long running drama included James McAvoy, Sean Bean, Russell Brand, Ray Winstone, Hugh Laurie, David Walliams, Catherine Tate and Emma Bunton.

The cast shared how they’re coping with being in lockdown themselves, confessing their strategies varied from "drinking wine and eating nibbles" to "playing the trumpet" , with Eric revealing how he's planning to shoot a film about being in lockdown with his director daughter, Sophie.

The former bobbies even started the call "in the slammer" themselves, as they changed their video call backgrounds to jail cell bars, a cheeky throwback to Sun Hill's once infamous police cells, before heading back to Sun Hill station and even "meeting up" with their younger selves from their 1980s cast photos.

When Chris and Mark imagined how their characters would fair in 2020, Mark revealed that he thought Carver would "be alright" but Chris jokingly confessed that "Burnside would be in prison."

The Bill is the latest in a string on lockdown web reunions for erstwhile shows and their casts.

The likes of Frasier, 90210, The Nanny and The Office have taken place online in recent weeks.

The Bill: The Early Years - Series 1-5 will be available to stream from 1st May at 10AM on UKTV Play, with a further four series to be made available, one a month from June