LET me tell you this – Gregor Fisher may have shot to fame for his depiction of a semmit-wearing, booze-swilling Govan philosopher, but it’s not going to stop him appearing on stage as a 100-year-old glutinous granny.
Fisher is swapping genders to take the lead role in the most ambitious comedy ever presented by the National Theatre of Scotland (NTS).
The Scottish actor, who played the much-loved comedy character Rab C Nesbitt for many years, has agreed to come out of retirement for the play Yer Granny, which also stars his long-time Rab C Nesbitt co-star Barbara Rafferty, Still Game’s Paul Riley and Only An Excuse’s Jonathan Watson, as well as Rab C regular Brian Pettifer.
Yer Granny – which the cast say has no resemblance to Mrs Brown’s Boys – has its “world premiere” in Greenock on May 19, followed by performances in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Inverness and Belfast.
COAXED
NOW 61, Fisher admits he had to be coaxed into taking on the role by his son, Jamie, who talked him into returning to the stage.
“I’ve not done a proper play for something like 25 years,” said Fisher. “My youngest son Jamie said to me: ‘Dad, it’s good to scare yourself every now and again.’ He told me to do it. That’s basically why I’m here. But I’m looking forward to it.”
The initial approach for him to play a “diabolical” matriarch, who lives above a chip shop in Cumbernauld with her Scots-Italian family, came from Rafferty.
She thought Fisher, who previously played Ma Broon from The Broons comic strip in BBC sketch show Naked Video, would be perfect for the part.
Fisher said: “This really came about when Barbara Rafferty phoned me up and asked me about this granny part. She said: ‘There’s not that many words.’ I asked her what the money was like and she said: ‘There’s not that many pounds either, but we might have a laugh'.”
An adaptation of Argentina’s best-known play, La Nona, Yer Granny centres on a grandmother whose gargantuan appetite forces her family into drugs, prostitution and bankruptcy.
The script, by leading Scottish playwright Douglas Maxwell, has been described by NTS’s artistic director Laurie Sansom as the funniest work he has ever read.
When first told about the play, Fisher said he was intrigued as he enjoyed playing characters in drag.
“I’ve always been quite fond of drag in one form or another. When I played Ma Broon I had an interesting chest arrangement. I had to wear a very large bra with a kind of broth mixture in it. It gave me a bit of movement. I might repeat that for this.”
While the central character is a man dressed as a woman, Fisher says there is no comparison with Brendan O’Carroll’s Irish comedy, Mrs Brown’s Boys.
“It’s so far removed from Mrs Brown’s Boys, so far removed from that panto thing,” said Fisher. “But it is very, very funny, and your life will be enriched if you come to see it – although if you’re expecting Mrs Brown’s Boys, you’ll be disappointed.
“The character is called Granny. But the question is, what is she? She’s a 100-year-old woman who comes back from the doctor with a clean bill of health and the teeth of a teenager.
“Some say she’s the distillation of the Argentinian Junta of the time. Some say she’s the personification of greed. Some say she is the embodiment of death.
“She’s a monster. But it’s up to the audience to decide what kind of monster. That’s what makes it interesting. It’s crazy, larger than life, extremely funny. It’s very exciting. And that’s why I got off my fat rump to do it.”
His Nesbitt co-star Rafferty calls the play “mad and dark – but it gets hysterical in places”.
She added: “We see it as a comedy with lots of jeopardy. And it’s great to work again with Gregor.”
COMEBACK
YER Granny could begin something of a comeback for Fisher, who is also set to star in this year’s panto at the King’s Theatre in Glasgow. He first appeared at the theatre in its 1981 panto, when he played a robber in Babes in the Wood, which co-starred Jack Milroy and Rikki Fulton.
While he never completed his post-school course at the Royal Academy of Music and Drama, Fisher still pursued an acting career and first became familiar on TV screens with the late Fulton in the hit sketch series Scotch and Wry.
Later, appearing in BBC sketch comedy Naked Video as The Baldy Man, right, and Rab C, his potential was realised and the first episode of Rab C Nesbitt was broadcast in 1988. Its popularity in Scotland propelled it on to the UK network, with its fame even spreading across the Pond – where Johnny Depp tried to copy the Rab C accent for the role of Tarrant Hightop, the Mad Hatter, in the 2010 movie Alice in Wonderland.
In 1994, Fisher was reunited with Fulton for the BBC series of The Tales of Para Handy and then won roles in 1999 sitcom Brotherly Love and 2002 sitcom Snoddy as well as appearing with Iain Glenn in the BBC Masterpiece theatre version of Kidnapped.
His film roles include Love Actually in 2003, when he played the manager of fading music star Billy Mack (Bill Nighy), right. This was followed by the role of Solanio in the Michael Radford film Merchant of Venice, then he starred as Mr Bumble in the BBC adaptation of Oliver Twist.
It’s been a busy career and there’s no doubt his incarnation as a granny will be a laugh, but fans will be hoping for lines as funny as these: Rab C: “Mary, you and I go back a long way to let a pound of dead meat come between us.” Mary: “Let’s leave our sex life out of this.”
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