Fans petition against Stamp axe

Fans of The Bill, ITV’s long-running drama series, are petitioning against the axe of the series’ longest serving character PC Tony Stamp [Graham Cole]. It was announced last week that the character was being dropped from the drama ahead of its revamp and move to a 9pm slot.

Unsurprisingly fans of The Bill have launched petitions to save one of their favourite characters – PC Tony Stamp [Graham Cole]. It was announced last week that the character would be written out of the ITV drama series ahead of its revamp and move to a later slot. PC Tony Stamp is currently the drama’s longest serving character having appeared in the series for 22 years. The decision to axe him was taken by producers because they felt the character wouldn’t fit in to the revamped show.

The move to 9pm, later this year, will see The Bill take on a grittier and more adult tone with darker storylines exploring more social issues. It’ll be a cry back to the early days of the series when it was a drama serial, not airing all year round, and was in a 9pm slot. It wasn’t until 1988 that The Bill moved to an all year round format and moved to 8pm where it has remained for 21 years.

Angry fans have started over ten groups on Facebook petitioning for the character to be saved from the axe.