Taggart: 251 murrrders

Published on Sunday 20 December 2009 19:58

FIFTEEN years after the death of its title character, Taggart will notch up its centenary episode this week, a success the cast and creators tell Emma Cowing they are proud of

&#149 Mark McManus in the title role,

A COUPLE OF years ago, Taggart actor Colin McCredie was sitting on a train when a man approached him. "He was quite a posh chap and he came up and said, 'I do believe there's been a killing,'" says McCredie. "Then he apologised, saying, 'I bet you get that all the time.' I said, 'No, in fact that's the very first time anyone's ever said that to me.' He was really offended and I had to explain to him that the catchphrase he was thinking of was, 'There's been a murder'."

Actually, come Christmas Eve there will have been 251 murders. Taggart, the world's longest continually running police drama and probably the most famous television programme ever made in Scotland, marks an extraordinary milestone this week when its 100th episode is aired. For McCredie, 37, who plays the gay police officer DC Stuart Fraser in the show, and whose first episode was No 31, it has been a long time coming.

"It's kind of mental when you think about it," he says cheerfully. "When I first started, 50 seemed like a goal, then 75, and then over the past three or four years we've always hoped we'd make it to 100.

"It's a bit funny this year because we've not been filming, we made this episode last year, but I think all of us thought, 'Well, you know what, we've achieved a hell of a lot.'"

That the show should be celebrating its centenary while a question mark still hangs over its future is something of an irony. In the summer it was announced that ITV may not recommission the series, although negotiations to secure the programme's future have been furiously taking place behind the scenes ever since. Earlier this month STV, which has committed to making a further six episodes of the drama next year regardless of whether ITV – which also pays for the programme – recommissions it, revealed it was looking at a proposal that would see STV become a co-production partner of the show.

Whatever happens, McCredie is sanguine about Taggart's future. "This year with ITV axing a lot of shows and our commission being up in the air, we all thought maybe the credit crunch had killed it. But it looks hopeful for next year. In my head I thought maybe that's it finished, but then STV said they are going to make these episodes and ITV still seem keen. We've always taken it a year at time."

Back in 1983, Robert Love, then head of drama at Scottish Television, was doing the same. Looking for a "foolproof" format that he could take to the ITV network, he sat down with young writer Glenn Chandler to dream up the perfect drama programme.

"I said to him what I really want is a thriller," says Love, who retired from his role as a producer on Taggart in 2000. "Not a police series, but more of a detective format. We discussed various ideas on how we should go about it and came up with the kinds of characters we wanted. I said I'd like to see the pairing of an older policeman detective who'd come up the ranks, partnered with a representative of the younger breed of detective that's university educated."

What they came up with was a three-part detective series entitled Killer, that centred around a detective named Jim Taggart. In the starring role as the old-school detective was the Bellshill-born actor Mark McManus.

"I was the person who chose Mark," says Love. "When I first thought about him he was actually top of my list, but I had two reservations about him – one was that strictly speaking if I was being authentic, all older cops in Glasgow back then were over 6 foot tall, and Mark was 5ft 9in.

"Secondly he had appeared in a Granada series as a desk superintendent, and I was worried about people making the connection. But having considered all sorts of other options I thought no, this guy is Taggart. There's nobody better."

After the initial success of Killer, the show's name was changed to Taggart. With whodunit plots that took place on the mean streets of Glasgow and also gave an insight into the world of a city police station, the programme went on to become one of ITV's biggest series of the 1980s, regularly raking in viewing figures of 12 million. "We once got 18 million viewers for a one-off Christmas special," Love recalls – audiences that, nowadays, even shows like the X Factor final struggle to reach.

Taggart's appeal was, says Love, threefold. "Part of it was that the character of Taggart was flawed, people could relate to him because he wasn't superhuman, he had his own little foibles and faults, his own weaknesses.

"And then there was the other star of Taggart, Glasgow itself. It's somewhere very different for English audiences particularly; it seemed rather exotic and gothic in its appearance. And then there was the humour. It was black humour, but it was still humour."

McCredie agrees, and points out that there's also something comforting about watching Taggart, despite its often gritty storylines.

"We're never going to be The Wire," he says. "People know what they're getting with us; we're like a tin of beans, safe and wholesome. Sometimes you want beans on toast, and sometimes you want to watch a Taggart."

McCredie joined the cast in 1994. Not long out of drama school (born in Perthshire, he studied at Glasgow's Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama), he was, he says, immensely excited about working with McManus. But it wasn't to be. The actor fell ill, and died shortly afterwards at the age of 59, plunging the cast and crew and much of Scotland into mourning.

"It was a surreal time," says McCredie. "James MacPherson (who played Mike Jardine] and Blythe Duff (Jackie Reid] were in mourning for the loss of Mark but at the same time trying to keep the show going.

"I went to Mark's funeral and it was unbelievable. There were thousands of people outside the church and there were police stood outside as the coffin was brought out. It was like a pop star's funeral. And of course at that point no-one knew what was going to happen to the show."

McCredie's first episode was also the first to be filmed without McManus. "The whole thing was tragic, and there was also a part of me thinking, 'Well that's typical. I get this part and the lead actor dies.'"

Love says there was a time when Taggart's future seemed entirely in doubt. "The obvious thing was, the hero's dead – therefore you can't go on," says Love. "We thought the network would pull it and we'd have to negotiate continuing and they said they would give us the chance to do two more episodes. Miraculously, the viewing figures didn't fall away, and we realised we'd be able to continue."

"It was a no-brainer at that point," McCredie adds. "We realised the brand was bigger than the name. The thing with Taggart is it's not really a character-driven show. Sometimes you'll have a big revelation in a storyline, like last year my character found out he was adopted and went looking for his mum, but in other episodes it'll just be, 'Say your line and ask people questions.' It's not like a soap opera. It's very story-driven."

With the addition of John Michie to the cast in the late 1990s, and then McPherson's departure in 2002 (which prompted the hiring of Alex Norton) the programme has continued to refresh itself while keeping to a familiar format.

Not, protests McCredie, that it's all glamour and riches on Taggart shoots.

"Back in the days when most TV programmes would have big trailers for everyone, we had one little camper van for 18 of us," he says. "We all went and sat squashed up in it and deliberately got the production manager out and said, 'We think we need another camper van.'"

Still, the cast managed to celebrate in style when it came to the 100th episode, with a cake in the shape of a body and personalised bottles of Champagne sent to everyone, past and present, who had been involved in making the programme, with labels that looked like forensic police reports. "I've not seen any on eBay yet…" McCredie jokes.

While the TV mandarins continue to ponder Taggart's fate, McCredie has recently been appearing in theatre productions in both Glasgow and Edinburgh, and is due to appear in a play called Ching at the Citizens in 2010.

But it seems that no matter how many more episodes are made, he, along with the other actors that have appeared in the programme over the years, are destined to be connected to Taggart for a long time to come.

So how often does he hear that famous, if occasionally misquoted, catchphrase, 'there's been a murder'? "I get it shouted at me in the street about once a day," says McCredie resignedly. "You just learn to deal with it."

"God knows where it comes from," remarks Love with an air of exasperation. "No-one on Taggart ever said it."

Perhaps, then, that chap on the train wasn't too far off the mark after all.

&#149 Taggart: Fact & Fiction, STV, 9pm, on Thursday