Still Game WILL return to TV | Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill in talks with BBC © BBC

Still Game WILL return to TV

Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill in talks with BBC

Still Game will return to TV, its creators say.

Writers and stars Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill are in advanced talks with the BBC to bring back the sitcom after they perform a stage version at Glasgow's Hydro in September.

'We’re talking to them at the moment about doing another series, but these wheels turn slowly,' Hemphill told a live audience at BBC Scotland's Pacific Quay.

'They seem very keen and are very supportive. And they’re happy that we’re doing the show, having this reunion. Hopefully fully we’ll be back on TV at some point in the next couple of years.'

The BBC have asked about more episodes ever since the last aired in 2007 added Kiernan: 'They’ve been very kind to us and kept repeating it and asking us back every year.'

The original run of the sitcom, which stars the pair as rascally, evergreen Glaswegian pensioners Jack and Victor, aired for six series between 2002 and 2007, transferring from BBC Scotland to BBC Two. And new episodes would also likely go out UK-wide.

'We were on the network latterly, and we were getting three million viewers' reflected Kiernan. 'Just as it was picking up we decided we wanted to stop doing it. Stupid.'

Answering pre-arranged questions from the audience, they gave little away about the format or character of the new stage show, for which they've sold nearly 200,000 tickets over 21 performances.

But Kiernan revealed that because it was theatre rather than sitcom, the supporting cast would be 'represented equally in terms of stage time' and that there would be 'a couple of surprise guests but naebody famous … we're all about the money. Sean Connery begged...'

They had still to write the show Hemphill jokingly added.

Interviewer Kaye Adams declined to press them on why they stopped speaking for seven years after a widely-reported bust-up over their production company, Effingee, despite Kiernan seeming to give her permission. And he maintained that their working relationship now was 'the same as it ever was.'

His co-star explained that they had never stopped communicating about DVD sales and that 'a friendship is a weird thing and it’s only ever a phonecall away from being fixed.My advice to any of you out there is, if you have a friend you haven’t spoken to for a while, pick up the phone.'

Hemphill also admitted that he was 'really nervous' about his film directing debut, the short Gasping, starring Frankie Boyle, which Chortle broke the news about earlier this month. He revealed that the controversial comedian only had one line of dialogue in his role as a recovered alcoholic who takes a business trip after promising his wife he won't drink.

The pair also spoke of how they came to work together thanks to stand-up Bruce Morton. After inviting them out for a drink, Morton was waylaid by a lady friend at his house. So they repaired to a pub without him and hit it off. Kiernan quipped: 'So it was [euphemistic whistle] that brought us together'.

On a similar note, Kiernan fondly recalled shooting some of Jack and Victor's first television appearances in the sketch show Chewin' The Fat. During a cigarette break during filming at a bank in Glasgow's West End, their make-up proved so convincing that an elderly lady propositioned him – an insight into a Glaswegian 'subculture of pensioners shagging' reminisced Hemphill.

Interestingly, Jack and Victor weren't the pair's first choice for spin-off characters from the series. But they soon abandoned a script that would have starred Kiernan as Ronald Villiers, the world's worst actor with a gravelly, monotonous voice.

But Chewin' The Fat will never return. 'Can you imagine us in shellsuits?' asked Kiernan, alluding to the show's 'ned' characters. 'Too much time has passed.'

Still, there's plenty of life (and game) left in their most enduring creations. 'They don't get any older, that's the beauty!' enthused Kiernan. 'We can play them for another 25 years!'

-by Jay Richardson

Published: 26 Jul 2014

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