Still Game gears up for live show as new series set to screen

Ford Kiernan and co-star Greg Hemphill have a 'solid idea' for another show at Glasgow's Hydro

The BBC Scotland show’s creator Ford Kiernan revealed he and co-star Greg Hemphill had a “solid idea” for another live show at the vast arena.

Ahead of the eighth series starting this week, Kiernan also disclosed the and Hemphill are about to start writing a ninth, which he revealed would take priority over a new Hydro show.

Kiernan said the pair were keen to return to the 12,000-capacity venue despite the “huge undertaking” involved in putting the two previous live shows there.

He added that the adrenaline of performing night after night in front of thousands of Still Game fans had helped the cast overcome the physical demands of the live show.

Kiernan and Hemphill patched up a long-running dispute to reunite the cast of Craiglang for a 21-show run at the Hydro in 2014, which led to the BBC offering the show a TV comeback.

By the time the show was about to return to the nation’s screens Kiernan and Hemphill had lined up another live production, which was staged early last year.

A new series was announced by the BBC after the end of the last Still Game live show and was filmed last summer.

Due to be launched on Thursday it features a brand new undertaker character, played by Bruce Morton, whose appearance in Craiglang appears to spark the death of a much-loved character.

Kiernan and Hemphill have also secured a cameo appearance from former Scottish stand-up favourite Craig Ferguson.

Kiernan said: “A show at the Hydro is a huge undertaking. It’s an enormous amount of work - it’s a completely different medium and it’s not very often, if ever, that sitcoms play arenas.

“If we did another one it would be our third. We’ve talked from time to time about doing it. We do have a fairly solid idea for a show, but there is so much going on. We’re about to move on to start writing another series.

We’re not short of ideas. We’re built Craiglang as a whole world. We are thinking about it.

“It is the most wonderful experience ever playing in a venue of that size. It’s all to do with demand.

“If we did the Hydro again I think it would be the last.”

Kiernan said the prospect of Ferguson appearing in the same came after he and Hemphill had gone out  to America to write the  last Hydro show to try to avoid distractions in Glasgow.