Having a Laugh Watching Ourselves: 60 Years of TV in Scotland

We first got television in Scotland in 1952. 1952!

That's the year the Queen became, well, Queen,

Prime Minister Winston Churchill scrapped identity cards,

the first-ever passenger jet flew across the Atlantic

and it was the year Eva Peron,

Hattie McDaniel and Curly Howard from the Three Stooges were born.

Huh? Died?

We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a special news report.

Hostilities have broken out between east and west

following the breakdown of talks this afternoon.

A full-scale nuclear strike is on its way to Britain,

and the four-minute warning has been sounded.

That's except for viewers in Scotland.

That sketch from the late '80s

brilliantly captures the mood of the times.

London felt a million miles away

and Ronald Reagan had his finger on the nuclear button.

If you didn't laugh, you'd cry.

Comedy is arguably the most creative,

individual and relevant kind of telly we make.

It's also the most Scottish - not that you can tell

from the oldest surviving example of our comic output.

The year is 1957 and the place, believe it or not, is Glasgow.

This is the opening night of STV

and it all kicks off with a curious mix of Hollywood glamour,

home-grown variety and men dressed as babies.

Got a fag?

Don't smoke.

Given it up.

From the very beginning, comedy was top of the bill.

The queue here is for The One O'Clock Gang,

a much-loved show that went out five days a week

from Glasgow's Theatre Royal.

-Thou art a coward!

-No-one calls the masked avenger a coward!

Why not? A coward thou art!

In their eight years of broadcasting,

the Gang clocked up a staggering 1,760 live performances...

Have you had an accident or does your face always look like that?

..so they can forgiven

if their routines were sometimes a little rough round the edges.

That was the very first programme I was ever in, or ever on the telly

cos my pal and I dogged school and we went and queued up at STV

at the top of Hope Street. And we got in and we were in the audience

and I was actually watching a television show being made!

And Larry Marshall, who was the host, came over,

cos he used to chat with the audience,

and he spotted us and we both had crew cuts, my pal and I.

And he came over to us and said, "There's two scrubber nuts!

"What you daeing here, how are you no' at school?"

And I remember panicking cos we'd dogged school.

I thought, "I'm going to get into helluva trouble here."

# It's in the news

# 1,200 paid for only trimming

# It's in the news... #

Writing comedy that stands the test of time is a tough gig.

One of the secrets is to create characters

that people can root for and identify with.

I'll tell you what, for a country that prides itself on its work ethic,

we don't half love a shirker.

Lex McLean was the original A1 chancer.

Here, he and his pals don disguises to con their way into a posh do.

It's an enduring fish-out-of-water set-up,

with a quality piece of lavvy humour thrown in.

Perhaps the lady would like something to eat first?

-Have you got a can of beer?

-I'm afraid not.

-How about a can-O-PEE?

-A can o' what? Oh, a canape.

Something for eating here. Eat it up.

And for yourself, sir? A drink? A martini, perhaps?

Yes, a pint of martini.

A pint it is, sir.

Lex is just one of a long line of rogues, misfits and schemers

who've managed to win us over with their willingness

to stand up for the things they believe in, like getting bevvied,

diddling the buroo and stickin' it to the man.

You may not have noticed,

but we really don't like it when folk get above their station.

Pint, please. And lift.

Smashing.

Francie and Josie were work-shy fops, with ambitions stretching no further

than the burds at the edge of the dance floor.

They were also the most popular comic characters of their day.

They were like the Beatles in Scotland! They were enormous!

I cannot tell you.

There's nothing so far in Scotland as big as they were then. Nothing.

Sadly, all the footage of the original '60s series has been lost.

All we have left are amateur pictures like these

and a recording of their stage comeback from the late 1980s.

-Anyone ever tell you you dance like Cyd Charisse?

-No.

I'm no' surprised.

I'll have you know I've got dancing in my blood.

It's a pity it hasnae got doon to yer feet yet.

Like many of our great comedians,

Jack Milroy and Ricky Fulton honed their skills on the stage.

Francie and Josie were fully formed characters

long before they made it onto TV.

What's that?

That's the hitchhiker.

What's that?

Troosers coming down!

What we're seeing here

are two performers with the ability to make us laugh

at pretty much anything they do.

As Fulton himself once said, anyone can make you laugh at a good joke,

but only a true comic can make you laugh at a bad one.

-It's a rare flair, in't it?

-It's a rare flair, in't it?

I wish you'd get aff ma feet an' try it for yersel.

Go!

Our biggest ever shirker is, of course, Rab C Nesbitt.

Gregor Fisher and writer Ian Pattison have taken a character

you'd cross the street to avoid and turned him into a national icon.

One of the reasons we love Rab is because he never shies away

from telling it like it is.

I'll tell you something.

You've no' half got to have a clear heid to be drunk these days, y'know.

Dive, Ella, dive.

Hullllooooooo!

'A lot of Scots hated it.

'A lot of Scots thought it was a dreadful image to give of Scotland.'

"Why is it always a drunk, and why is he this, that and the other?"

But in actual fact, we sort of took ownership of it and thought,

"Well, you always cast us as the drunk in The Bill,

"or you cast us in Holby City or whatever it may be.

"Why don't we just take it and say this is who he really is?"

And he's got a brain too.

Everyone has to work, Mr Nesbitt, or perhaps you disagree?

Disagree? Of course I disagree.

Listen you here to me.

There is a working population in this country of 20 million,

and there's only 17 million jobs to go roond,

so some poor bugger's got to be on the buroo, don't they?

So might as well be them that likes it.

I'll tell ye this, I lap it up...

'Writer Ian Pattison is quite a political animal'

and he would rail against the prevailing powers that be

and every week Rab C Nesbitt had a rant, a political rant,

about what was wrong in society, from his point of view.

The Europeans, eh?

Hell of a sense of humour the Europeans, haven't they?

I mean, they've got to have, haven't they,

making Glasgow the European City of Culture

and still being able to keep a straight face?

That takes some doing, eh?

Because I mean, I'll tell ye, see us scum, us keech,

we're having a bloody hard time aff the shortbread set

just because it's 1990, you know.

"Oh look, look at that, it's stereotypes like him

"that give Glasgow a bad name. Give us Van Gogh."

Aaargh, bloody Van Gogh.

The best of it is, see that Van Gogh,

he was a bigger heidbanger than me. So he was! He was a nut case.

See if I met Van Gogh in the lavvy of the Two Ways,

I'd dae a U-turn in case he chibbed me with his palette knife.

Ian Pattison gave his show an extra edge by setting it in Govan.

Critics sometimes say that Scottish comedy's too parochial,

but I never hear them saying the same thing

about Only Fools And Horses, Shameless or Phoenix Nights.

As far as I'm concerned,

keeping things local only adds to the originality of our humour.

And it doesn't get much more local than Scotland The What?

I hope your lugs are working.

You're going to have to listen carefully here.

Most of our comedy comes from the central belt.

A notable exception is Scotland The What?

These guys met at Aberdeen University in the early 1950s.

They performed together for 26 years and were in a class of their own

when it came to taking the mickey out of rural life.

Sorry I'm late, Mr Webster.

Oh, that's a' richt, I was lookin' oot the windae

and I could see ye coming.

You'd no trouble finding the place?

No, your directions was spot on.

Five miles fae Rhynie five-and-a-half fae Kennethmont.

By Jove, you're very central here.

The makers of "Scotland The What?" were writing as insiders.

They used their knowledge of the North East

to create the fictional village of Auchterturra

and populated it with a bunch of eccentric but believable locals,

kinda like what a couple of dobbers did with Craiglang in Still Game.

'The next couple of clips are widely regarded - by me -

'as the best in the show.

'Jack and Victor are a couple of mischievous old pals,

'abandoned by their families and making the most of it.

'They live on their wits and get by,

'treating old age like a second childhood.

'In this scene,

'Victor's been saddled with the task of emptying a neighbour's pee pot

'and can't resist a prank at Jack's expense.'

Oh that's heavy.

Oh!

Thought I was going to be covered in piss then!

Still Game was commissioned by BBC Scotland

with a Scottish audience in mind.

It was the same with Chewin' The Fat.

The more Scottish we made it, the more viewers it seemed to get.

People like their comedy to reflect their own lives

and that's what this next sketch is all about.

News For Neds makes fun of local news programmes

and asks how local can local news go?

The answer? Not local enough.

And now the main points of this afternoon's Budget again.

Interpreting for the neds, Rab McGlinchy.

How you doing?

As expected, the Chancellor increased tax on the old favourites

alcohol and tobacco.

Beer will go up by four pence a pint,

while smokers can expect to pay as much as £3.97 for 20 cigarettes.

So you cannae blame me for wirin' in while I can still afford it, man.

This dobber should be wearin' a mask, so he should.

I've got nae choice but to get a len' o' ma brother's transit,

batter doon to Callie

and jam it oot wi' fags and crates o' that mad lager.

Gie's a shout if you want a wee message or that?

Meanwhile, there was better news for drivers as the Chancellor

outlined plans for a price freeze on a gallon on unleaded petrol.

That's better news? Don't talk pish, he's no' got a scoobie, by the way.

Diesel's going through the roof. I've got good mates, right,

that work in the carnival, this could put 20 pence - 20 pence! -

on the price of a shot on the dodgems.

And finally, the Chancellor targeted absentee fathers.

As well as an increase in the level of monthly child maintenance,

he announced tough new powers for the Child Support Agency.

Aye, sure, I'm followin' through into my boxers on that one.

Listen, if you've no' got it, they cannae get it aff you.

So look, mates, don't go short-changing yersels,

just plead skint and gie her what ye can gie her, no? Ha ha!

-Good night.

-Good night.

'We had a lot of fun with language in Chewin' The Fat.'

But in comedy as in everything else, there's nothing new under the sun.

30 years earlier, Stanley Baxter took the concept

of the foreign language education programme

and applied it to Glaswegian Scots.

Parliamo Glasgow.

Baxter was making a network show here,

so he had to make sure his material

would play to a UK as well as a Scottish audience.

As he puts on his jacket,

the father enquires if his daughter's gentleman friend

is taking the evening off his employment.

Izziafiz Wurk?

Note the word "Izziafiz".

We use this as a prefix when asking a question.

If we're concerned about a person's lack of appetite,

we enquire, "Izziafiz meat?"

Similarly, "Izziafiz Boozin?" Does he keep reasonably sober?

And if we find that someone's behavioural pattern

is tending towards the unorthodox, we might say,

"Izziafiz Bliddichump?"

However I digress.

Scottish comedy, I think, I've always thought this,

Scottish people like seeing themselves in Scottish comedy.

I think in truth, Scottish people, I think we like ourselves,

we like the way we speak,

I think we think we're funny and I think we like our patter

and we want to see that reflected in the comedy that we watch.

'This sketch has had 3 million YouTube hits. We love it

'because we've all had to repeat ourselves at one time or another.'

Whaur's the buttons?

They installed voice recognition technology in this lift.

Voice recognition technology in a lift? In Scotland?

-You ever tried voice recognition technology?

-Naw.

They don't do Scottish accents.

Eleven.

'Could you please repeat that?'

-Eleven.

-Eleven.

-Eleven.

-Eleven.

'Could you please repeat that?'

El-e-ven.

Whose idea was this?

You need to try an American accent.

El-evann?

El-evann?

-That sounds Irish, no' American.

-No, it disnae.

El-evann.

Where in America is that - Dublin?

'I'm sorry, could you please repeat that?'

People seemed to like it outside Scotland.

There was maybe even mair people outside Scotland that liked it.

You could check on Facebook

and you could see who was watching it and sharing it on Facebook,

and it was a lot of Indian people and Asian people.

So a lot of people were just getting that thing

of technology no' picking up their regional accent.

'Please remain calm.'

Aaaargh! Let me get up there.

Right, just wait for it to speak.

'You have not selected a floor.'

Aaaah! Up yours, you cow.

If you don't open these doors, I'm going to come to America,

I'm gonnae find whatever desperate actress gave you a voice

and I'm going to go to the electric chair for you.

-Scotland ya

-BLEEP!

-Scotland!

-Scotland!

Scotla-a-and!

Freedom!

Freedom!

Most of the stuff we've been looking at up till now

has had its roots in the real world.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that's what we're dealing with here.

But don't be fooled.

The comedy of Chic Murray comes from somewhere else entirely.

This is surrealism, Greenock style.

If it's any consolation, I've no idea what's going on here either.

I've lived here for 50 years off and on

and I've been a violin maker since I've been five.

These plastic kits are quite nice and they can be painted, varnished,

but to me, as a craftsman, there is no substitute for wood.

He was surrealist comedy.

"I was walking down the road,

"I knew it was a road cos I could see the sign that said road..."

This extraordinary way that he extended stuff.

I'm living in a hotel, they've got me...

Ahem. Excuse me. ..in a hotel and I'm not a complainer,

but I made my way downstairs and I could see the manager looking at me.

He said, "What is it?" I said, "I would like a door in my room."

These journeys that he goes on are very simple, simple narratives,

but it's every detail along the way that he picks up on

and it just edges it into this... and suddenly the world seems crazy.

The most simple action seems like it's kind of wacky.

I just think he's a genius, I've always thought he was a genius.

So after some time, a door arrived.

Not on its own, of course, there was two fellas brought it up.

So, once the door was fixed,

I made my way out because I wanted to get out, you see.

And I turned this handle,

there was one on the other side, I noticed that on the way out.

I never used that, you'd need to put your arm around the door...

Now, comedy without controversy is like a roll'n'sausage...

without the sausage. Not so tasty.

The football sketch show Only An Excuse isn't a show

you'd immediately associate with controversial subject matter.

But take a keek at this spoof of a well-known advert

and see if you change your mind.

# Oh, Lord

# And I've been waiting for this moment

# For all my life

# Oh, Lord... #

As with all spoofs, the success of this sketch depends on us

having seen the original advert.

Jokes like this have a shorter shelf life,

but they always get a great laugh.

MUSIC: "The Sash My Father Wore"

The 1980s saw a new wave of alternative comedians

burst onto the scene. Among them was a fresh-faced Robbie Coltrane,

who starred in sketch shows such as A Kick Up The Eighties

and "Laugh??? I Nearly Paid My Licence Fee".

One of his more outrageous characters

was an east coast Orangeman by the name of Mason Boyne.

# Mason Boyne on the march once again

# Mason Boyne and his bold Orangemen... #

It's hard to imagine a character like this

popping up in a comedy show these days.

Watch how Mason Boyne's blinkered world view brilliantly exposes

the absurdity that lies at the heart of religious bigotry.

I've got a very important meeting tonight. We're going to discuss

the three most important issues facing mankind and the world today -

nuclear disarmament, a starving Third World

and the growing number of Catholics in Edinburgh.

Phil Differ and I had the idea of just writing an absurdly Masonic guy

who painted...

all the green leaves in his garden orange, and all that stuff.

And I'll tell you something else,

did you know that Adolf Hitler was a Catholic?

And Mussolini and Atilla the Hun and Dracula

and, by the way, that huge shark that ate all the people in Jaws?

My favourite one was the episode where his daughter, Orangina...

..sent him a Christmas card

and he'd got a box of orange creams for his wife and so forth

while she was ironing his sash,

then he kissed you-know-who on the way out.

I got a lot of stick for it, I got death threats, actually.

I think it's important to poke fun at extremism in all its forms

and Mason Boyne was the extreme, the ultimate Orangeman.

I think it was important that we just had a wee go at them.

But equally important, I think you've got to balance that.

Well, we did the Pope the next week.

"I'm not a Catholic, but I think you're a good guy

"and talk a lot of sense.

"I'd appreciate a signed photo." Ha-ha!

"It's not for me, it's for the wife." Ha-ha-ha!

What's so weird about that, Chico?

It's signed "the Reverend Ian Paisley"!

Go on, do him. Cracks me up!

Red socks. Red socks!

Satanic anti-Christ of Rome.

You kill me, Pope, you kill me!

So, as far as I was concerned, we were just being naughty.

The reaction was extraordinary,

you wonder if you'd get away with it today.

The '80s sketch shows tackled the issues of the day head-on.

They were fast paced and provocative and if you were easily offended,

that was YOUR problem.

My first writing job was a Radio Scotland show called Naked Radio.

It eventually transferred to TV as Naked Video

and became a big hit for the BBC network,

but not before recovering from an early identity crisis.

-ENGLISH ACCENTS:

-Bloody flies.

I wouldn't do that if I was you.

I'm sorry(!) You're one of those, aren't you?

"Don't harm the animals!"

Bloody karma nut.

No, it's not...

No, I'm sorry but they're getting this!

All right?!

Because the money was from England,

we were under instructions at the beginning to make it

accessible to an English audience because it was being networked.

So sketches would be set in... two Liverpudlians or two people

from Birmingham or London or Wales or somewhere like that.

Unfortunately, some of us weren't all that good at accents.

I always sounded Australian when I did Cockney.

We all tried various different English accents

so that we'd be "on the network".

So we did all that in the first series,

and then when we did the audience research, they found, across the UK,

that actually what people liked about it was the Scottish accents.

Now the show had its voice, it wasn't afraid to use it.

Most Scots found the economic policies of the Thatcher government

hard to swallow, but they were meat and drink to our comedy writers.

Mr Harris, I'm from the council,

we've come to collect your poll tax.

The '80s weren't just about breaking new ground.

Bob Black, a sketch writer for Naked Video,

went back to sitcom basics to create City Lights,

a comedy starring Gerard Kelly as Willie Melvin,

a bank clerk with pretensions of being a writer.

City Lights is no Terry And June,

but it's as close as we've come to making a middle-class sitcom.

Willie! Will you give yourself a shake and hurry up?!

In this scene from series one,

Willie shows us how the merest hint of success goes straight to his head.

He's a classic fool in the same vein as Del Boy and Father Ted Crilly.

-If you're not ready when that car gets here...

-I'm ready!

-If you're late for...

-I've only got my jacket to put on.

Well, if the traffic's heavy between here and the church...

If the church falls down in the middle of the service!

If the minister's run off with...

Gerard Kelly would go on to become Scotland's King of Panto

and his acting style was perfect

for playing a larger-than-life character like Willie.

Put your jacket on.

-Ma, I've done it.

-What?

-I've sold one! I've sold a story!

Very nice, son. Put your jacket on.

Clydeside Fiction Magazine want to buy my story City Lights for £35!

£35!

Will you put this on?!

"Please arrange to meet our fiction editor

"to discuss the sale of more material." MORE material!

This is it!

This could be the start of something big.

The character, if you read it out in black and white,

he would appear to be insufferable and most unlikable.

And yet Gerard brought this total vulnerability to him,

that, although his dreams were harebrained and wild,

they were totally and utterly sincere.

Don't get carried away.

That pile of wastepaper is hardly worth giving up a steady job for.

Listen to who's talking.

A man who's allergic to work.

You haven't had a steady job since school bully.

That's our jaunt through Scotland's comedy archives almost over.

To round things off now, we're going to go right back to the beginning.

The first ever Scottish sitcom was the Vital Spark.

The little steamer with a lot of puff made its first appearance

in a series of short stories written by Neil Munro in 1905.

Since then, almost every decade has seen it featured in some form,

either as a movie, TV series, book or play.

Its most popular incarnation was the one made in the 1970s

featuring this wonderful cast of comic actors.

If there was ever such a thing as a Scottish comedy superhero,

his name would be Para Handy...

a man who combines the dastardly attributes

of our classic comic chancers

with the free-booting spirit of a renegade sea captain.

I think Para Handy is the archetypal outsider. He's a rebel -

although in Scottish terms, he's probably just a bit of a rascal.

He's at odds with society,

he's always at odds with authority.

He's someone you can root for.

For a man who's so at odds with the world,

Para Handy has a remarkable ability to inspire those around him,

or to at least pull the wool over their eyes.

In this scene, he manages to convince a mutinous crew

to buy into one of his harebrained money-making schemes.

What is it about comedy and harebrained money-making schemes?

Well, you must admit, it's a bargain at £25!

£25? You didnae hae 25 pence yesterday!

Did you come into some money?

Well, in a sense, Dan, aye.

Oh! You can't go wrong buying a thing like this!

That was why I wanted my good friends to share in my good fortune.

Well, that's very thoughtful of you, Captain,

but where did you get the money?

The wages!

You picked up our wages this morning! Take it back!

-It's an investment, Dan!

-Take it back!

Ah, Dan, you'd have only spent the money on drink!

By Jove, the Board of Trade's gonnae hear about this!

Get that thing back this minute!

It is no use,

the man is shut for the half-day and we're sailing on the next tide.

Not with that thing! And not without our wages!

Damn me, where is your spirit of initiative, eh?

It is the sinews of trade and private enterprise

that keep the capitalist system going!

We're merchant adventurers, that's what we are.

Free traders, free booters.

I mean, if Captain Cook hadn't wanted to trade with the natives,

America would never have been found!

And we'd all have been wondering what chewing gum was!

So there you have it.

Judging by our comedy tastes,

we're nothing but a bunch of rogues, misfits and chancers.

But fear not, we're not doomed yet.

There's still someone we can turn to for salvation.

Someone whose sense of right and wrong

is matched only by his sense of comic timing.

No-one can milk a silence like Ricky Fulton.

Hello.

Well, here we are again, eh?

Doesn't time fly when you're excruciatingly happy?

What a year I've had.

Honestly, as-as, eh, whatsisname...

God...

..as God is my judge,

I've had a helluva year.