DES DILLON's football-bigotry comedy Singing I'm No' A Billy - He's A Tim has been brought out more times in the past ten years than a referee's note book during an Old Firm match.

Not surprisingly, audiences have asked continually about a sequel.

"But I just didn't see how it could work," the Coatbridge-born writer admits. "For one thing, sectarianism seemed to be on the wane. Then I read about a story which revealed to me it's still very much a mindset. It was about a young man who was stabbed, and the instant reaction from both sides of the divide was 'What team did he support?' That made me think there's still a long way to go before bigotry really disappears."

But how to take Billy and Tim forward? The original worked so well because it featured characters trapped in jail by their own contained perspectives who attack each other with razor-sharp comment and bile.

It's a funny play because it's dark, and because the audience recognise a truth. Dillon knew he couldn't put them back in prison - so he put them in an infirmary.

"I came up with this idea they meet up and put a bet on with each other that they will go to a Celtic -Rangers cup match, but to the opposite ends of the ground. The challenge was they had to remain composed if the other team scored."

But of course, Billy and Tim are diehards, with blue and green blood in their respective veins. Within five minutes they explode - and end up in first aid at the football ground receiving treatment

Art then imitates life, with the story of someone being stabbed outside the ground. In Dillon's new play however the young man who is stabbed appears in the play as a ghost. A wee ned ghost.

"The wee ned ghost has just realised he's dead. But why is he in this situation? That's when God talks to him, sounding very much like a Hawaiian surfer dude. The desperate ned protests he's too young to be a ghost, he's just fallen in love with this beautiful Polish nurse who works in the infirmary, and he's about to ask her out on a date.

"The ned begs for another chance at life. 'I'll do anything!' he screams. So God presents him with a challenge: if he can persuade one bigot to give up on bigotry he'll have another chance at life."

Will he manage to convince Billy and Tim to love each other? Will the wee Glasgow ghost find love with the infirmary nurse? And how can the football fanatics see the lad if he's a ghost?

"God has decided only Billy and Tim can see the ghost," says Dillon, grinning. "The nurse can't see him, so that adds to the fun. And of course, the ned tries to tell the boys he's in the spirit life, but they don't believe him. "They think he's part of a YouTube hoax and he has to convince them he's a genuine spook. That offers a real chance for some big comedy."

Shades of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) or Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, and Dillon however makes no apology for writing a sentimental play - a Glasgow version of It's A Wonderful Life with fitba' jerseys.

"I like sentimental," he says. "There's a scene in this play which should have the audience sobbing. I know, because it had me greetin' during rehearsals - and I wrote it."

Dillon also loves a spiritual content in his plays. "I think many of my plays have had a spirit element to them," he says, smiling. "There was Six Black Candles [a story about six sisters from Coatbridge, based on Des's own family, who take up white witchcraft in order to cast a spell on a cheating man] and I wrote another play with a ghost in it, The Big Queue, set in Italy."

Also on tour this summer is The C Word, a story about how we judge people and how language and accent are a bad measurement to determine a person's true value. It features a potty-mouthed women, men tied up in wheelie bins, and a Nigerian ghost.

"I just love the idea there's something out there we don't quite understand. I believe in other realms."

Dillon's new football comedy was originally entitled Billy, Tim and The Holy Ghost. Why do the posters now say Billy, Tim and the Wee Glesga Ghost?

"That goes back to the bigotry," he says, with a tight smile. "When we put the original posters, up outside the theatre they were defaced. Celtic fans thought it was taking the mickey out of the Catholic religion and Rangers fans thought it sounded like a pro-Catholic play."

What Dillon's football plays, are not is subsidised by Creative Scotland, although you might argue that his comedy efforts are more likely to re-shape some ingrained thinking that any official directives.

"That may be true," he says, smiling. "But the chances of arts funding for something so populist is unlikely."

"It's great if you can write a play with a message. But I also want to entertain. What I really want is for people to leave the theatre with a huge smile on their face. And maybe a few tears."

Billy, Tim and the Wee Glesga Ghost, is at the Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow, May 6-23.