Woodentop (The Bill) Woodentop (The Bill) "Woodentop" is an episode of the Thames Television series "Storyboard", which includes a series of one-off plays on different themes. The episode was originally broadcast on 16 August 1983. "Woodentop" became the forerunner to long-running British police television series "The Bill", which went on air 14 months later and continued for 26 years. The name "woodentop" is a colloquialism for beat policemen who traditionally wear helmets; the nickname is itself an allusion to the Children's TV series "The Woodentops". The episode documents PC Jim Carver's first day at Sun Hill Police Station, where he is partnered with
Television Centre, London for such productions rapidly declined with the last major drama series to be shot there being "The House of Eliott", which ended in 1994, and the last single drama recorded was "Henry IV, Part 1", in 1995. This was because drama production moved almost entirely onto film or single-camera video, and Television Centre was a video-based, multi-camera production environment. At 19:00 on 22 March 2013, a special edition of "The One Show" was broadcast from the front of Television Centre followed by the building's last live broadcast "Madness Live: Goodbye Television Centre" and special programming to mark the end of