JACK Docherty holds up his mobile phone to display a photograph that he intends to get framed for his mother’s mantel. It shows a senior police officer looking resplendent in uniform while giving a cheesy thumbs up to the camera in front of the New Scotland Yard sign.

This is Docherty’s alter ego Chief Commissioner Cameron Miekelson, who returns to screens this week when the second series of Scot Squad airs on BBC Scotland. Styled as a fly-on-the-wall mockumentary, the improv comedy follows the bumbling Miekelson – the proudly proclaimed first Chief Commissioner of the newly unified Scottish Police Force – and his equally hapless team as they go about their daily business upholding law and order.

As it happens, the snapshot that Docherty, 53, is toting will have a bit of company in pride of place in the home of his 80-year-old mum Joan. In a bid to pretend he had “finally gone legitimate and got a proper job”, the star of cult comedy series Absolutely has already presented her with another framed photograph showing him looking every bit the dashing officer.

“Although I think I have got a better one for her this year,” he smiles, pointing to his phone. The picture, he explains, was taken by a random chap on the street. According to Docherty, this is “the sort of thing whichhappens all the time” when filming Scot Squad.

“I was trying to take a selfie and this passer-by didn’t know we were filming,” he says. “He stopped and said: ‘I’ll take it for you, sir.’ He thought I was a real policeman. He asked: ‘I hope you are not leaving?’ and I replied: ‘No, no – it’s my first day,’ to which he said: ‘Congratulations, sir.’ I mean, as if the new chief of police would be doing selfies outside New Scotland Yard …”

Docherty is a funny man. Not funny in that rat-a-tat-tat machine gun manner favoured by some comedians, where they spew out one-liners like verbal diarrhoea, but rather he possesses a dry wit and a knack for flawless comic timing.

His role in Scot Squad – albeit in a loose, leftfield way – follows in the footsteps of his late grandfather, who was a high-ranking officer in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire. Docherty interjects. “I think I over-promoted him,” he says, referring to an earlier telling of the tale.

“He might actually have been chief superintendent. I never knew him because he died when I was five months old but, if he is anything like my father, he would have heartily disapproved. I come from sensible stock.”

Astute is a word you might use to describe Docherty. Talented. Shrewd. But sensible? That’s a tad too much of square peg in a round hole for the maverick genius who was one-quarter of comedy sketch group The Bodgers and famously incurred the wrath of Hollywood after deliberately giving away the twist ending to The Sixth Sense while hosting the Baftas.

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When we meet, filming of Scot Squad is ongoing. Asked what the new series holds in store for Miekelson and Docherty responds with a hearty laugh. It turns out that working on an improvised show brings plenty of fodder for the blooper reel.

“We were arsing around next to the New Scotland Yard sign and I was trying to figure out how it works. I did this thing of getting dizzy and falling over. Of course, you forget you are on CCTV the whole time. Suddenly, the real police are coming out and saying: ‘What the f*** are you doing?’”

What happened next? “You get the producer to sort it out. Me? I just leg it.” Docherty gestures towards a pile of scripts nestled in his bag. “Those here are ‘scenarios’, but I have only literally had a tiny look through them,” he says. “If you over-prepare it does feel too scripted.”

While lesser actors would become quivering wrecks, Docherty professes to enjoy the improv aspect. “I love it actually,” he says. “Formal acting is completely different: you have to hit your marks, there are six cameras and it is much more pressured. With this the scary bit is more ‘What if we get nothing?’ You can go down dead ends, but it’s quite exciting trying to figure out where it goes.”

Docherty insists he didn’t draw inspiration from any real-life public figures – such as the beleaguered outgoing Police Scotland chief constable Sir Stephen House – with any such comparisons merely coincidental.

“I wasn’t even aware of who he was, rather embarrassingly,” he says. “Before the first series someone asked: ‘So, how much of this is Stephen House?’ I replied: ‘Who?’”

The youngest of two children, Docherty grew up in Edinburgh. His father, Campbell, worked as a manager in the Royal Bank of Scotland, where Docherty’s parents met. His mother later worked as a librarian at Queen Margaret College.

Docherty attended George Watson’s College in the Scottish capital where he and school friends Moray Hunter, Gordon Kennedy and Pete Baikie formed The Bodgers. This year marks the 35th anniversary of their debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. “God, is it really?” he groans. “Jesus. I didn’t realise. It just always feels like yesterday. That is terrifying – I was 18 when I started.”

The quartet remain good friends. “We hook up every now and again,” says Docherty. “We were all at school together but they were a bit older than me – I always like pointing that out.

“They are five years older so there is going to be a glorious moment where they are in their sixties and I’m luxuriating in my fifties for five full years. When we meet up it is just the same as when we were younger – drunken. I’m sad to report our friendship and work is based on going on the piss.”

Absolutely – which grew out of The Bodgers – had a devoted cult following in Scotland. Even today it maintains a staunch popularity: Stoneybridge Town Council’s bid to host the Olympics has been voted one of the top 50 comedy sketches of all time.

Docherty’s own favourite was McGlashan, a playwright and fervent Scottish nationalist. In one infamous sketch the bold McGlashan cycles to the Scotland-England border, steps across and hurls abuse before cycling away while anxiously looking over his shoulder.

The famed Stoneybridge, meanwhile, was only ever meant to feature in a one-off sketch. “It became a bit of an albatross around our necks,” he admits. “When we started out the one thing we said we would never do on Absolutely is repeat ourselves, any catchphrases, politics or parodies.”

Not that Docherty regrets reneging on that. “People still shout ‘Stoneybridge’ at me in the street,” he adds. “Even now, I get recognised the most for Absolutely.”

Docherty wrote for Spitting Image in the mid 1980s. Does he believe modern politicians would be as much fun to satire? “They do seem slightly more characterless,” he says. “When you think back to Norman Lamont, [Margaret] Thatcher, Michael Foot and [Neil] Kinnock, then look at the likes of David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband – although he would have been a good puppet be honest – generally they are all pretty bland.

“[Nigel] Farage would be the perfect puppet because his head would be a pint glass. [Alex] Salmond would be a good puppet. He keeps getting fatter and thinner, so you would need one that expands and got big and fat even while he is speaking: here’s the thin Alex and the big, fat Alex. It would be fun, but I can’t see Spitting Image coming back. Those days are gone.”

Curiously, Docherty has always seemed on the periphery, a cult favourite but never quite reaching the echelon of household name status. It is his hope that a TV adaptation of BBC Radio 4 sitcom Start/Stop – charting three marriages in various states of disrepair – might change all that.

“We have just done the pilot to transfer that to telly,” he says. “We are in the process of now writing the second one and hopefully will get a decision soon on whether it is going to series. That is BBC One network – it is my stab at the mainstream. I have never really been in the mainstream.”

Why the sudden conformist ambition? “Well, I’m getting older,” he says. “Now is the time. Although when I say mainstream it is still, hopefully, kind of darkish for BBC One. There is a cynical character. It is about a guy whose life would be perfect if it wasn’t ruined every day by his loved ones.

“I love being in the minor stuff – and cult is a nice way of putting it – but as you get older you do think you should be at least attempting the wider audience.”

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With Start/Stop still awaiting a slot as part of the BBC Comedy Playhouse series, Docherty has other irons in the fire. He is working on a family movie, Cardboard Mummy, which he describes as “a tear-jerker, a comedy Christmas film”.

The storyline centres on a young girl whose mother has recently passed away. “It is based on a friend of mine whose wife sadly died,” he says. “His daughter, who was only six at the time, asked: ‘Can we build Mummy?’ and he had to say: ‘No, I wish we could, but we can’t.’ She replied: ‘I know that, but out of cardboard?’ In the film, the cardboard mummy comes to life and they go on adventures – she helps the girl get over the fact her mother is no longer there.”

These days Docherty is based in London where he lives with his partner Kate. He has three children – son Nico, 22, and twins Campbell and Tulula, 17 – as well as three stepchildren. “Six kids but three inherited and twins. So I always say it is actually only two f**** – that’s quite a return.”

He looks thoughtful when asked about interests outside of work. “I was trying to list these for Tinder,” he says. “My passions are pretty arts-based such as reading. I collect books and have about 100 first editions. Lots of sport, mostly football. I support Hibs, but live in London so I’m a Fulham season holder with my kids.”

Hang on a minute? Did he say Tinder profile ... Docherty gives a cheery nod. “How does Tinder work?” he asks. It’s a dating app. “Yeah, where you swipe pictures one way or another?”

After a moment of confusion, it transpires that he was making a profile for an episode of Start/Stop. “The husband and wife have an argument over who at the age of 50 and 48 would be most attractive – so they go on Tinder to find out,” he explains.

Confirmed that Tinder sees people swipe right if they like someone’s profile picture and left if they don’t, Docherty’s eyes widen in alarm. “That’s brutal,” he says. “So, it’s a bit like going into a bar 30 years ago and shouting: ‘Does anyone like me?’ and everyone going: ‘No.’”

Docherty is the co-founder of Absolutely Productions which has produced comedy shows such as Mr Don & Mr George, Trigger Happy TV, and The Armstrong and Miller Show. While a natural in front of the camera, he still views writing as his first love.

“I would always call myself a writer above anything else because that is what I value and rate,” he says. “I’m evangelical on behalf of writers, particularly because they are not often given the credit. People don’t recognise writers – when you are younger people don’t want to have sex with writers.”

He breaks off laughing. “The serious answer, though, is that I have to do a bit of everything,” he continues. “I had given up performing for 10 years. It was actually Scot Squad that got me back into it when we did the pilot. I suddenly realised I was missing it so I’m doing as much as I can again. It is a lot of fun. I would get bored just doing one thing.”

Ultimately, proclaims Docherty, his long-term goal is “to have a laugh and not die”. Which, to be fair, is about the most that any of us can hope for.

The new series of Scot Squad begins on BBC One this Monday at 10.35pm. Thanks to Citizen M Glasgow (citizenm.com)