Stop / Start review

Jack Docherty's wedded radio sitcom makes a blissful (ish) leap onto the small screen.

Narrated by Jack Docherty, this lovely one-off programme gathers various Scottish comedians and asks them to reminisce about our Hogmanay traditions.

"Ye cannae see in the New Year with a messy hoose," my Gran always says, insisting that if you start the New Year in a mess then you'll remain so. That's the tradition this programme opens with: the need to have the place spick and span to greet the New Year, and we're mocked for boasting about our Hogmanay housewifery. "Whit, ye've hoovered?", says Des Clarke. "That's something you should be doing regularly!" Nonetheless, we boast about the dusting because it makes us feel part of the celebration.

"Officer Karen" from Scot Squad talks of opening the door to let the old year out - something which is rarely welcome as it also means letting the cold in, whilst Jane McCarry recalls wandering the streets and looking up at tenement windows to see where the loudest noise and brightest lights were coming from - then you'd simply walk up and gatecrash. "There were nae buzzers in those days" so it was easy.

All these Scottish traditions are compared with others from around the globe, but the verdict is that ours are the best.

Jack Docherty to appear as cop character at comedy fest

Scot Squad favourite Jack Docherty will appear as his cop character at next year's Glasgow International Comedy Festival. Chief Commissioner Cameron Miekelson, played by ex-Absolutely star Docherty is "the self-proclaimed face and voice of modern policing in Scotland" in the BBC Scotland parody of a police documentary series. Docherty said: "This is my first live performance in 23 years."

Comic Jack Docherty, who appears in referendum mockumentary Scotland in a Day (airing on Thursday as the Scots go to the polls), first broke on to the scene with his sketch series Absolutely - it's aged impressively well.

Jack Docherty interview

Scots comic Jack Docherty tells why No vote in independence could mean comeback for his most famous character McGlashan.

Interview: Jack Docherty, star of Scot Squad

Jack Docherty, back on our TV screens 
on Monday as a bumbling police chief, has made a successful career out of comedy by ensuring he only does the things 
he enjoys, he tells Stephen McGinty.

BBC Radio 4 has just started a new season of comedy pilots, and Stop/Start is the first on offer.

It's written by and stars Jack Docherty, who is perhaps most famous for being part of the team behind the 1980s-90s Channel 4 sketch show Absolutely (referred to by some as the Celtic Monty Python). Stop/Start revolves around three couples, of which Docherty forms one half as Barney Ferguson, with Kerry Godliman playing his wife Cathy.

The main characteristic of Stop/Start is that the entire cast keep stopping the flow of the show in order to explain their point-of-view to the audience, so we get to know what they're really thinking.

Some readers will probably be thinking that they've come across this sort of thing before, namely in Peep Show, in which you're able to hear a character's internal monologue. However, this is different. Here, the characters know that you can hear them and therefore try to persuade you to side with their argument.

The show's quite comparable to some of Docherty's early sketches on Absolutely, which featured him talking to someone he wanted to avoid, then talking to the camera to explain his true feelings. A tried and tested formula, then. The audience reaction is great, too, especially when they boo some of the asides, like when one character admits to reading someone's diary.

There's no doubt that Stop/Start could go on to produce a full series, and I hope Radio 4 does so.

First episode of a terrific comedy series starring Jack Docherty, Gordon Kennedy, Rebecca Front and David Haig. Andrew Merrin, visiting professor of anthropology at the University of the West of Scotland (formerly Partick Polytechnic) is embarking on a project to introduce to the modern world two Jacobite soldiers - Macdonald, the chief of the clan, and Rab, his bard - who have been holed up in a Perthshire cave since the mid 18th century.

First lesson: what is patriotism? The search for an answer involves a trip to an Edinburgh souvenir shop and a pep talk on football from Tess McNair from Radio Peebles, followed by a real match: Scotland v the Dickson Isles (like the Faroes but smaller) in a World Cup qualifier - a comic tour de force that had me howling with laughter.