Characters 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, the first-ever passenger jet flew across the Atlantic,

the Americans dropped the first H-bomb,

and the BBC children's TV series Flower Pot Men debuted.

Just that last fact seems a little smaller than the other ones, no?

Just compared to the other ones, a wee bit small?

You sure? OK, your funeral.

The best television is character-driven.

Sure, movies might be able to wow you with special effects and car chases,

but in TV budgets are smaller and it's always about telling somebody's story.

Over the years in Scottish drama,

we've met some astonishing characters,

people who burn up our screens,

who we feel as if we know as well as our own family,

men and women who are unforgettable.

Tonight we raise a glass to a few of them.

You see, if this was a film, that'd be a whisky.

I'm not complaining, I'm just...I'm just saying.

For me the king of them all is Danny Boy in Tutti Frutti.

He's big, he's rude, he's poor, but you can't take your eyes off him.

Plus, he gets to play pat-a-cake with Emma Thompson.

I can honestly remember sitting down with Em

and reading the first draft of Tutti Frutti

and just laughing till we cried because it was so funny.

Tutti Frutti opens with this classic funeral scene,

filmed in a great location - the Eastern Necropolis cemetery in Glasgow.

Danny arrives late for his brother Jed's funeral.

He was the lead singer in The Majestics.

And there's this funeral and everyone thought, "Oh, God,

"what is this Scottish, dour, blah-blah-blah?"

And then when they start singing as the group in the funeral,

that was it. I thought, "We're away."

# Now there are just three steps to heaven

# Wa-wa-woo

# Just wish and you will plainly see

# That as life travels on

# And things do go wrong

# Just call them

# Three steps to heaven

# Steps one, two and three

# Wa-wa-oooh... #

Tutti Frutti was written brilliantly by playwright, artist,

living legend and original slab boy John Byrne.

What John did was make Tutti Frutti alternatively drama and comedy.

I mean, there was proper acting, proper relationships,

and there were tragedies and so forth,

but also, at least half the time, it was hilarious,

and no-one had done that before.

If you must know, I was leaning over the chip pan

listing the shortcomings of a self-styled lead guitarist

when one of my front teeth fell out.

Naturally, I tried to recover it before the plastic melted

and contaminated the chips, as any sensible person would.

One more remark about left-hand rolls and try-oots

and your ugly kisser's going straight through that windscreen!

Danny replaces his brother and joins The Majestics

on their 25th anniversary tour.

And let's just say the rest of the band don't exactly warm to him.

# I don't run around with no mob

# Got myself a steady job... #

John Byrne was inspired to write Tutti Frutti

by the real Glasgow band The Poets,

who had one hit before disappearing into obscurity.

# Anyway we're almost grown... #

There's a strong sense of the grotty reality of life on the road here.

London, Paris, Rome, Buckie!

But although the stuff with the band is ace...

I love you.

..there's no doubt that what brought the audiences back week after week

was the tricky, compelling relationship between Danny and Kettles.

What you mean is you lust after me.

No, no, that's OK, that I can understand.

You're single, you're away from home...

and you've just had two smokies.

Look, can we discuss this some other time? I'm going out to get some toothpaste.

That puts everything in perspective, doesn't it?

Guy just admits to being nuts about you

and you're going out to buy toothpaste.

That says it all, Kettles, doesn't it?

Gives me some idea about where I rate in your list of priorities, doesn't it?

-We need toothpaste, Danny.

-That'll be the royal we, cos it certainly isn't you and me.

-How? Have you got your own?

-No I haven't got my own damn toothpaste!

That's what I thought, I'm going out to get us some - bye.

Come back here, damn it!

Aren't they great together here?

"When Harry Met Sally" great.

For younger viewers, Edward and Bella-great.

Don't get the stripy stuff, it stings my gums.

But the secret of Tutti Frutti

was the chemistry between Robbie and Emma Thompson,

and nobody to this day

knows who cast Emma Thompson, nobody.

I have to say that I suggested her.

And she wasn't their first choice

because they thought she was very posh and English,

and I said "No, no, no,

"her grandparents come from Ardentinny,

"she can do a perfect Glasgow voice, she's the girl for the job."

# Love is strange

# Love is strange... #

'She was supposed to play the guitar

'and she'd never lifted a guitar in her life,

'and she took three weeks' tuition

'and she was giving it the chords - talented wee bag she is.'

# How do you call your baby home?

# Well, I guess if I wanted her back real bad

# I'd call her something like this

# Baby

# My sweet baby

# My sweet baby... #

The big man can really carry a tune.

# Please, come on home... #

In Tutti Frutti and his follow-up country and western series Your Cheatin' Heart,

John Byrne creates unique worlds.

Maybe it's because he's one of Scotland's best painters

as well as a writer, but everything here is one man's vision.

Sometimes television drama can feel as if it was made by committee.

This is the opposite - John Byrne's done everything himself,

He's so hands-on, his DNA's on every frame.

In Your Cheatin' Heart, John Gordon Sinclair gets to play opposite Tilda Swinton.

-Look!

-Where?

-That means you can make a wish.

Oh, I thought you'd spotted a phone box.

Tilda Swinton's brilliant.

Cissie?

Go on, snog her, you big Jessie!

God, see when you look at me like that,

you put all thoughts of turnips and raisins right oot my head.

# And lay you under

# Its ever-lovin' embrace

# You feel the thunder

# As it warms your face... #

I couldn't resist showing you this.

Eddi Reader and 200 Hell's Angels line dancing.

# Just let your love flow

# Like a mountain stream

# And let your love grow

# With the smallest of dreams... #

John Byrne always makes the most of a musical number.

# That's the season

# Woo-hoo hoo-hoo

# So, let your love fly

# Like a bird on the wing... #

MUSIC: "Hey Jude" By The Beatles

SHOUTING AND BANGING

Keep away fae me!

In 1994, Takin' Over The Asylum told the story of a wannabe DJ

who sets up a radio station in a psychiatric hospital

and falls in love with one of the patients.

This is the first time our hero sees Francine -

it breaks your heart.

# The minute you let her under your skin... #

Great use of music here, too.

SCREAMING OVER MUSIC

I mean, I started out with the fact that, um,

you know, I've had mental health problems and I knew people who did.

There isn't...

There's only one story

that wasn't in the orbit of people I knew.

You all right?

How would I no' be all right?

'I actually wrote the part for Katy Murphy,

'nobody else was in the frame for that part.'

You're a patient here?

Nah, I'm the new minister of health for Scotland.

What's your name?

Francine.

So you're the new DJ, eh?

That's me.

We're starting up a request show with the patients.

If you want to request something, I'll play it for you.

What about Help!

There's a lot of humour in Taking Over the Asylum.

Authentic, believable characters,

and a sort of underlying meaningfulness, I suppose,

a soulfulness, you know.

So, it could make you laugh, and then it could make you cry.

And it could really make you cry because there was such depth

and authenticity to the characters.

-Eh, I don't think I've got that one.

-Disnae matter.

-No, it's stupid, I should have that one.

-Disnae matter.

-What did you do that for?!

-I was putting out my cigarette.

On your arm?!

Well, I couldnae find an ashtray.

Ken Stott and Katy Murphy aren't the only Scottish talent in this.

The producers really struggled to find the right actor

to play Ken's sidekick until director David Blair

said he had a young Scottish actor who was Second Hitchhiker

in a thing he'd done a year or two back,

and the guy had been no' bad.

Here's the audition.

My life's work, my soul's passion, is gonna be...

..this.

You see even from this that it was all in front of him.

No, a DJ, a radio disc jockey, Dad.

And I can get all the experience I need

right here in the hospital station, is that no brilliant?

Look how little that performance has changed.

I'm 19 years old,

and I'm staying in Glasgow to work in the station!

I'm gonna be a professional DJ whether you like it or not!

You stand there, shouting at the top of your voice,

throwing your arms about like some mad scarecrow,

and you're telling me your not ill?

Five years after Takin' Over the Asylum,

another Scottish TV series was set in a psychiatric hospital.

This time, though, the focus wasn't on the patients,

it was on the doctors.

Takin' Over the Asylum won awards

for its sensitive portrayal of the mentally ill.

Psychos, on the other hand, was roundly condemned

by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

But, hey, what does the Royal College of Psychiatrists

know about television, eh?

He's isolated, he lost his job, his marriage ended...

Symptoms of the root cause which is Motherwell Football Club.

-The rest's just details.

-Oh, of course, how silly of me.

Colin's lost the only thing

that ever really, truly, actually mattered to him -

he cannae go to the games any more...

Douglas Henshall plays a psychiatrist

who's as mad as any of his patients.

He threw himself into the role.

..he watched the games on Sky.

Football is the last shred of community spirit

left in this country, and that poor bugger's been shut out for good.

It's no wonder he tried to do away with himself.

You sound like a textbook.

Psychos' surreal humour about the medics was groundbreaking.

This was years before Scrubs or Green Wing.

'Come on.'

BANGING ON A DOOR

'Colin, what are you doing? Open the door!'

'Colin!!'

Colin Goodall took his own life.

At nine o'clock this morning, he jumped of a roof.

No-one is more sorry than I.

This was Scottish writer David Wolstencroft's first telly.

After Psychos, he did a show called Spooks.

He's in New York now.

Bet he really misses us.

37 years ago, a very different Scottish medic

was a massive hit across the country.

Unlike Dr Nash, Dr Finlay didn't take drugs,

rant about football or pump his patients.

And yet, somehow, in spite of this, the show became a huge popular hit.

It ran for nine years and drew audiences of 12 million a week.

Is that all you wanted me for, Dr Finlay?

Thank you very much, Dr Cameron, yes.

Then I'll be away -

don't scratch it, boy.

Bill Simpson played Dr Finlay

and Andrew Cruickshank was his senior partner.

If you go into the kitchen, Janet'll give you some tea.

'They were very nice, very, very good,

'and you could direct them.'

It wasn't a question of being stubborn,

deciding, "This is the way I'm always going to do it."

Even Andrew, you could actually shift him a bit.

Not a great deal, but you could.

Bill - I always had a great deal of time for Bill,

I think he was a very good actor.

Samuel Oddie, that's down here,

"Samuel Oddie, Black Farm - £4!"

We haven't had that many potatoes!

Dr Finlay was set back in the '30s

in the fictional town of Tannochbrae.

It seems a bit couthie to us now.

Where did Miss Scott get that figure?

I can't remember the last occasion on which I saw Oddie.

It wouldn't be from the time his son was born, Doctor?

Bless me, Janet, I think you're right.

How old is he now?

Oh, he must be getting on for 12, Dr Finlay.

12?! And he still hasn't paid for him?!

'We used to watch Dr Finlay's Casebook regularly.

'You know, it was kind of blanket coverage in Scotland.'

Just about everybody who had a telly

would have watched Dr Finlay's Casebook.

It was a real phenomenon, you know?

We'll have to have it dressed and cleaned until we're absolutely sure

there's no further infection.

Can she no dae it?

Because Dr Finlay was set before the NHS,

the good doctor spends a fair amount of time

trying to get money out of his patients.

Oh, it was like it was written by Nostradamus.

That'll be seven and sixpence.

-What's that for?

-That's my fee.

Five shillings for attending you and two and six for calling me out.

Dr Cameron never charges me on the nail.

Ahhh, well they call me Pay-As-You-Go Finlay.

Mind what I told you!

Watch this scene and see if you can recognise the young actor buying an apple.

Have you any farthing apples, Mr Grant?

Eh, aye.

This? For a farthing?!

It was gobsmacking to be asked to do that.

I mean, I was reeling with the thought

that I could actually be on the telly.

I mean, I came from a very working-class background.

You know, people from my street didnae normally get on the telly.

Aye, and you can take that one as well, eh?

Cheers!

'I mean, my head was turned completely.'

There was no going back to being an apprentice plumber.

That wisnae gonnae happen.

Dr Finlay's casebook closed in 1971,

although it lived on for another seven years on the radio.

That same year, the BBC adapted one of Scotland's greatest novels

for the screen - Sunset Song by Grassic Gibbon.

This is the story of Chris Guthrie,

a young girl with a quiet presence and a will of iron.

Chris, do you like me a bit?

I can't thole you at all.

That's why we're out here, lazing in this place together.

'Like him?

'It was as though my blood ran so clear

'and with such a fine, sweet song in my veins,

'that I must hold my breath to hear it.

'And so it was that I knew I liked him.

'Loved him.'

-Ewan?

-Hm?

It's got a very good narrative through it,

with the central character of Chris being the narrator.

And it's in a part of Scotland which is not terribly well-known,

outside Scotland. And it's where I grew up.

So it's like going back to my roots, in fact.

'But for all my reading and schooling,

'two Chris Guthries there were that fought for my heart

'and tormented me.'

This is the first-ever drama from Scotland made in colour.

Sunset Song is passionate

about the landscape of the Northeast.

Chris Guthrie has an intense relationship with the land

and the series makes us share that.

'..with the smell of the earth in your face.

'Almost you'd cry for that. The beauty of it.'

There are the interior thoughts which are going on,

so I would carry those thoughts,

because very often I would be filming a piece in silence

but I was aware fully of what voiceover accompanied it

and had to look like that was what I was thinking.

It also showed BBC Scotland's first-ever nude scene,

but you don't want to see that.

Oh, you do? All right, we'll show it.

For historical purposes only, we'll show it.

'But then I would laugh at the daft thoughts

'and look at myself in the glass.

'I was growing up.'

OK, it's not exactly full-frontal,

but this is Sunset Song, not 9½ Weeks, remember.

She sees perhaps more than she should.

She understands perhaps more than other people want her to understand.

She's an outsider in that community, if you like.

Aye, he died fine.

Young Ewan'll grow up to be proud of his father.

You've the consolation of knowing that he died for King and country.

King and country?

-You're havering. Havering!

-Now, Chris...

He died for nothing!

For nothing! Hurt and murdered and crying for me!

And you bitches sit there and talk about King and country?!

Get out! Get out!

Get out of Blawearie!

The TV version made a whole new generation of readers

discover Sunset Song.

Some of the best of Scottish television is adapted

from Scottish literature. That might feel a bit lazy.

Can't these TV Johnnies make their own stories?

But just think what we'd all have missed out on

if this next heroine hadn't leapt off the page.

Miss Jean Brodie is one of the great creations of Scottish literature

and as you can see here, Geraldine McEwan translated her

into one of the great creations of Scottish television.

One's prime is the moment one is born for.

And you shall have the fruits of mine.

Sandy? You're squinting again.

Is your mind wandering? What have I been talking about?

A lot of people remember Maggie Smith

in the film adaptation and forget the TV version.

But I think Geraldine McEwan gives her a run for her money.

But I am determined that when I am finished with you,

you will be life's elite.

Which is to say,

the creme de la creme.

Most of this was shot in a studio,

but when they let Miss Brodie out into Edinburgh,

the series really comes alive.

My feet are freezing, Miss Brodie!

Mary, Queen of Scots never complained,

though her feet where entirely numb

as they paraded her through the streets in her petticoat.

My next TV hero you'll almost certainly never have heard of, much less watched.

But it's a blinding performance in a great piece of drama.

It's called The Dunroamin' Rising. It was a play on BBC One

and it was only ever shown once on 9th February 1988,

and no-one's seen it since -

which is a pity, because it's sheer genius.

Hey, BBC guys! Get it repeated!

Are you OK?

KNOCKING ON DOOR

Russell Hunter plays Ian Sinclair, an old Glasgow Red.

He's collapsed and needs to go into a nursing home.

Oh, my God!

Watch how the director tells us how grim and difficult

this is for Ian just by showing you his point of view

as he is carried into Dunroamin'.

Moira Armstrong started directing television in Scotland in 1965.

She made six episodes of Dr Finlay, made her name on Sunset Song

and Testament Of Youth, then made this.

She's still directing now, at 82.

Her latest credit was Lark Rise To Candleford.

She's made 149 hours of television drama.

'It's a very good piece. I really loved doing it.'

In fact, it's the first time I had been back in Glasgow

for ages when I did it

and it was a lovely cast.

Free pills!

Ian organises a kind of civil disobedience at the home

and it's brilliant.

The women that provide your food...

-..are being sacked.

-MURMURING

It's a kind of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest for pensioners

and personally, I've always been partial to a pensioner.

No right to anything.

Because the people that run this home

think it's cheaper to employ private caterers.

Now, you may all think that there is nothing wrong with that,

that there is nothing immoral.

-How very true.

-Where's the pills?

That's just the start.

As soon as a service starts looking for profit,

it ceases to be a true service.

Right, have a guess who's up next.

Go on, guess. You got it yet?

DOG YAPS

That's right, Hamish Macbeth.

Here he is, channelling a little bit of Gary Cooper

from all those Saturday afternoon Westerns.

I fancied him and all my mates fancied him. He was gorgeous.

I had this idea that he could work for a mainstream audience.

People were a bit nervous at the time as he'd been Begbie in Trainspotting

and a psycho in Cracker.

Say nothing just now,

because we'll have a mass panic on our hands here.

Robbie is utterly convincing as a village bobby.

Maybe even a lynch mob.

I'll be sending these to Inverness.

For analysis.

So one of the things which sealed it for me

was we had these great scripts, really unusual scripts,

and the idea of Bobby playing this mainstream, network character, I thought was fantastic.

'Bobby Carlyle didn't actually like dogs very much, so getting him to act

'with the dog was always a bit of a challenge for him.'

Ah, Jock.

How can people no' be like wee dogs, eh?

Simple.

Uncomplicated.

What's really great about Hamish Macbeth is the way

it has its cake and eats it. It's perfectly subverted Sunday night TV.

So you get beautiful countryside,

quirky locals...

..and ceilidh dancing, if you like that kind of thing.

But it's self-aware and so is its hero.

I remember reading this script late at night and bursting out laughing

because it was so crazy and such surreal humour

and was such a leftfield take on what Sunday night TV drama should be.

I just thought "I can see this, I can make this," and it made me laugh.

Did you know that an adult blue whale

has seven-litre testicles?

Well, I must confess to being ignorant of that fact up till now.

And its penis is nine foot long.

Nobody we know.

Nine and half million people watched Hamish Macbeth,

it was a huge hit for BBC Scotland.

BAGPIPES SKIRL Something we covered on the course in Inverness.

Audiovisual ambience. Tourists love it.

You know, some day we'll do something in this country

because WE love it.

Looking After Jo Jo was filmed in 1998,

the year after Hamish Macbeth ended.

It shows the effect of the coming of heroin to Edinburgh.

It's set in the '80s, it's a period piece.

High unemployment, brutal economy, Tory government...

wait a minute!

MUSIC: "In The City" by The Jam

Look how the title sequence

neatly nails the period of the world it's set in.

# In the city there's a thousand things I wanna say to you... #

In Looking After Jo Jo,

I think Frank Deasy wrote a really complex character.

I think he wanted to show someone who was really human

in that situation.

He didn't want him to be an incredibly smart drug dealer

who was ahead of the game, he didn't want him to be just a victim.

It was a combination of those things. I think the thing with Jo Jo

was that there was a strange innocence about him.

Jo Jo starts off dealing heroin and ends up using.

This series rode in on the back of the buzz

around the hit film Trainspotting.

See if they get your words, when you pi them thegither,

they've got your voice. They fit you up with a statement like that.

Telling you, they're choking to do me.

But do they know it's you?

Christy, what they know disnae matter.

What matters is what they can prove and they cannae prove anything.

So you sit blind and you say nothing.

In spite of all his villainous characteristics,

we can't help rooting for Jo Jo. Carlyle makes sure of that.

Dinnae talk like that in front of Christy, John Joe.

Sorry, I forget.

He's an East Coast Tony Soprano before Tony Soprano.

-Hey!

-How ye doin', woman?

Hey!

I phoned you, but your weren't there.

This series shows the destruction of a community, a family and a man.

Bobby Carlye also makes one of the scariest rabbits I've ever seen.

SCREAMING

Thugs Bunny!

Begbie Bunny!

Rampant Rabbit?

No!

Bobby Carlyle was, I think, almost, the only person

who could play that character. The only person in Scotland at that time

who had the charisma, the range of acting ability,

who would go on that journey in the way that Frank had written it.

The Broadcasting Standards Commission upheld a complaint

that Looking After Jo Jo glamorised heroin use,

which seems bizarre. Look how grim this is.

You can come a wee bit closer if you like. I huvnae got any fangs.

You look even skinnier.

I'll end up like my da.

Found deid somewhere.

Don't say that.

Director John Mackenzie and writer Frank Deasy both died recently.

Frank was only 50. They were major talents.

John directed The Long Good Friday and Frank wrote Prime Suspect,

but I'd think Looking After Jo Jo is up there in their greatest hits.

If I've no got a villa in Spain by the time I'm 30,

I'll dae business with ma partner in crime.

Great TV characters are invented by writers, nursed along by directors,

and brought to life by extraordinary actors.

Over the last 60 years in Scotland,

we've been lucky enough to see a fair few of them.

When everything comes together like this, it's sheer magic.

# Bye-bye, love

# Bye-bye, happiness

# Hello, loneliness

# I think I'm gonna to cry-y

# Bye-bye, love

# Bye-bye, sweet caress... #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd