Comic strip is Salmond panto wish

The First Minister has invoked the privileges of office by making a personal request for a favourite comic routine to be included in this year’s panto in Aberdeen.

Salmond, a fan of the traditional theatrical form, asked actress Elaine C Smith, who stars in His Majesty’s Theatre’s production of Jack and the Beanstalk, if she would include an old routine known as The Quine Who Does The Strip At Inverurie.

“The last couple of years he’s come to see the show and brings all his office staff,” Smith, who stars as Fairy Flora MacDonald, told Scotland on Sunday.

“He loves pantomime – he loves parliament, what’s the difference – and he said, ‘If you’re doing Aberdeen, you should do The Quine…. It was by June Imray, who was a famous Grampian TV newsreader and she did this song at New Year. He prodded us in that direction and when I listened to it, I thought, we could do something funny with that.”

Smith, 53, who is due to appear in a stage version of the life of singer Susan Boyle next year, has now incorporated the song into the panto, in which she will coyly remove a pair of bloomers before revealing … an Aberdeen football strip.

The actress, best known as Mary Doll in Rab C Nesbitt, has supported the SNP in the past, and was often spotted this year on the Holyrood campaign trail alongside Salmond and deputy first minister Nicola Sturgeon.

The Quine … has become a favourite comic song in the North-east and is often sung in Aberdonian dialect. It includes the verse: “Oh I’m nae Brigitte (pron the “te”) Bardot and I’m nae Sophia Loren, Miss United Kingdom, oh no, ye’re wrang again, And I’m nae Prince Charles’s girlfriend or even Miss Grampienne, I’m the quine that dis the strip at Inverurie.”

A spokesman for the MSP for Aberdeenshire East, said: “He is a big panto fan – oh yes he is – and loves to treat his constituency staff at Christmas-time. Any resemblance to shenanigans in the parliament chamber is purely coincidental.”