Should Scottish culture wilt or thrive now that we've passed on the chance of independence?
Some argued that, naturally, independence would have invigorated artistic output but others said artists need something to kick against and an unpleasant Government in London serves that purpose.
They may have a point. Think of the explosion of alternative comedy in the 80s. Would that have happened quite so vigorously without Thatcher breathing down their necks? Would the young comics have had such a cage to rattle if benevolent old Michael Foot had been pattering around in Downing Street?
Surely they needed Thatcher and her ilk to rebel against, so perhaps continued rule by an amoral Westminster government, then more and yet more of the same, will be a spur to Scottish comedy. It could be a boon for the scene, if not for those who're sick or poor or young people trying to find decent work.
But I remind myself that we're here to talk about comedy. If comedy swirls and bubbles in the clubs before breaking onto our TV screens then we can assume there's plenty going on in Scotland because, over the past two weeks alone, BBC Scotland have premiered three new Scottish comedy shows: The Sunny, How Do I Get Up There? and Scot Squad.
Scot Squad is a spoof of the over-the-top police reality shows like Sky Cops and Police Interceptors. These shows are hugely tacky and I only ever watch them when in Blackpool. If you're away for a dirty weekend and the foul weather has forced you back to your hotel room, damp and irritable, by half seven, what can you do other than kick the rose petals off the bed and lie there watching Traffic Cops as rain batters the window?
So I was sadly familiar with the type of show Scot Squad is mocking. And so is my boyfriend.
The show mocks the newly merged Police Scotland, with the Chief Constable Cameron Miekelson (Jack Docherty) concerned with bureaucratic trivia, such as the number of hats available to officers and whether they should adopt a hat-sharing system. In the second episode he wastes millions having a logo designed for the new force which turns out to be much the same as the old one.
The strength of the comedy is that this is horribly believable, but its strength also comes from the show's improvisation. The actors were given the outline of their scenes and then allowed to improvise their way to the resolution or punchline. This works perfectly, especially as the Glasgow patter is not known for its slinky eloquence but for its rough edge. Improvisation, with its meandering and halting, captures it perfectly.
Previews of the show have focused on the inclusion of Jack Docherty but the stars of the show are clearly James Kirk, who plays the nervous little Volunteer Officer Ken Beattie, and Darren Connell as Bobby Muir, a man who's obsessed with his local police station. These two easily stole the show whereas the sequences with Jack Docherty were often stale. He was playing the pompous, uniformed boss but it's a type we all know from countless sitcoms and, alas, from real life, so there were few surprises with the Chief Constable.
Perhaps it points to insecurity? Maybe a new show needed a big name behind it to launch? Docherty was hyped a lot, and features so prominently, but it's with the rest of the cast that the treasure lies.
With James Kirk (who also stars in How Do I Get Up There?) there was real squirming awkwardness, and with Darren Connell some brilliant surreal moments as he came trailing into the station, again and again, with supermarket trolleys, a missing poster for a dog with no dog on it, or his complaint: 'Someone's unfriended me on Facebook and put ma face oan a pig…and they've tagged me.'
Whilst there were some weak moments, like the cliche of the Chief Constable, the silly alliterations by the narrator, or the character Maggie Le Beau, a police call handler with shoddy lines like, 'sorry madam, we can't really arrest your children', there was plenty of great stuff. I just wish they'd wrench some screen time away from their dominating big star and give it to the others. Or to James Kirk and Darren Connell.
With such a large cast it's inevitable it won't all be comedy gold. Scot Squad is like a vast circus tent with one or two poles missing: it sags in places, but the canvas itself is still brilliant.
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