Still Game (BBC Scotland)
****
DEAR Still Game, you bowed out in true Scottish style. In an up and down series that has been the sitcom equivalent of Scotland’s World Cup run in Argentina, 1978, you signed off with an Archie Gemmill-like moment of brilliance that brought a lump to the throat the size of a Clansman’s pie. Dylan, eh? Rascals.
The swansong began with Jack and Victor (show creators and stars Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill) doing what they do best, shooting the breeze. It was time for a new page in the calendar, this one showing Ben Lomond, the Munro the boys had always aimed to climb but never did. A plan was hatched for the two, plus Bobby, Tam and Winston, to give it one last go.
Meanwhile, Isa (Jane McCarry) was digging herself deeper into debt by giving yet more of her money to animal charity chuggers, to the extent she had to ask her pal and employer Navid (Sanjeev Kohli) for an advance.
Susan Swarbrick interviews Jane McCarry
Kiernan and Hemphill duly managed to get everyone together in the same place. Be it MASH or Blackadder, a cast should go over the top together. Before they did so, there were the usual salty jokes and ripe language that went too far, as when Jack, hearing a sheep approaching, threatened to “put a stick up its **** and barbecue the *******.” Bit OTT, no?
A day on, the hill still unclimbed, Jack and Victor set off on their own. Then it happened. As Dylan sang Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right, each of the characters took their leave in a way that spoke to the sadness of time passing and the joy of companionship, of going through life’s peaks and troughs with good pals at your side. At the going down of the sun, and whenever anyone slips on a patch of ice, or we hear a ripple of maracas, we shall remember them.
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