Still Game duo confirm stage comeback | - and possible TV return

Still Game duo confirm stage comeback

- and possible TV return

Still Game stars Greg Hemphill and Ford Kiernan have officially confirmed that their sitcom is returning to its beginnings as a stage show.

The pair have this morning announced the revival of their pensioner characters Jack and Victor for four nights at Glasgow's new Hydro venue next year – and say they are in talks to bring the sitcom back to the BBC.

At a press conference at the Hydro, they said no format for the shows has been settled upon but Hemphill suggested 'we might do memorable bits from the shows, we might do songs, we might do a script’.

He added: ‘It feels like a reunion. We want to do some songs because that's how Jack and Victor and Winston started off.’

The show will open on September 30 next year at the 13,000 capacity new venue, a far cry from the debut of Jack (Kiernan), Victor (Hemphill) and Winston (Paul Riley) at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1997, when Hemphill recalled performing in a 'room, sweaty with 12 people. I'm probably doubling that actually, embellishing’.

He added that they're due to hold talks with the BBC this week about reviving the sitcom after the live show, but 'whether that will be a series or a series of specials, I don't know.'

Kiernan explained that they'd been inspired by an authorised stage version of the sitcom put on earlier this year by a cast of unknowns from the Sonic Boom Theatre Company at Ayr’s Gaiety Theatre – as well as the opening of the Hydro.

It was 'quite a nice catalyst' he said. 'It was niggling. It would be nice to do it again and be pals again’.

The pair fielded questions over their rift since the show last appeared on television six years ago, with Kiernan joking that 'Paul and I and Mark [Cox, who plays Tam Mullen] got involved in a pedalo business in Millport...’ before clarifying that 'Greg and I have been talking together for a wee while. We started talking about what it would be like to play [The Hydro] – a very productive chat and it would be nice to be in there.

'The characters are still very much alive. Craiglang's still there.'

Riley claimed that there was still a lot of interest in the sitcom. 'Every cab you get into, it's always been there'. And he cited 'seeing 10,000 drunk Glaswegians on a Friday night' as his motivation to bury the hatchet with his former partners.

Cox, Jane McCarry (Isa Drennan), Gavin Mitchell (Boaby) and Sanjeev Kohli (Navid Hamid) were also present at the press conference, with Kohli claiming that he had a 'ten year theory that this day would come … because Rab C came back.'

• Tickets for the shows will be priced £45 and £30 and will go on general sale at 9am this Friday.

- by Jay Richardson

Published: 23 Oct 2013

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