Sanjeev Kohli says the Scottish television industry will be losing “an academy” for industry professionals and actors when River City ends next year.
Kohli may be best known as Navid in Still Game, but he also had a long-running role in the Scottish soap between 2016 and 2022. Now the series is set to finish in 2026, he is worried about what willl be lost as a result.
“Love or hate River City - and there are plenty of people in both camps -it’s an academy,” he told The Herald Magazine in an interview.
“I learned loads in my five years there. I watched camera operators become directors. I watched people learning on the job. And that will be away.
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“I know they are replacing it with other Scottish-based productions and that’s great, but there’s no other place where you will get that learning curve.
“So that is what will be missing.”
Kohli was speaking to The Herald Magazine about the end of his long-running radio show Fags, Mags and Bags which he co-writes with his co-star Donald McLeary. But he was also keen to express his concern about the state of TV and film production in Scotland.
“There’s a lot of talk now about Scotland being a location rather than an actual production hub. I’ve almost made a career of the guy getting a call two weeks before a production. ‘Oh, the main roles have been cast by English people. Could you drop some crumbs on the table?’
“We need more stuff made in Scotland by Scottish people. Because the talent is here.”
River City, created by Stephen Greenhorn, began back in 2002, but BBC Scotland has decided to end the series next year, saying audiences are moving away from long-running dramas and now prefer shorter runs. One of the new projects is an adaptation of Graeme Armstrong’s best-selling novel The Young Team
