GAME OVER!
GREG HEMPHILL AND FORD KIERNAN REVEAL WHY VICTOR AND JACK’S TIME IS COMING TO AN END…
The launch of an entirely new channel is always cause for excitement here at Inside TV, so we’re positively giddy for the arrival of BBC Scotland this Sunday. The launch-night schedule includes a brand-new series of Still Game, but here’s where our joy becomes mingled with sadness – it’s the last one. Ever. We caught up with the show’s creators, Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill – who play Jack and Victor – to find out what’s in store for the final fling…
Why did you decide to finally say goodbye to Jack and Victor?
Ford We’ve been doing this for a long time – 16 years on TV, but we’ve been playing these characters in one form or another for 20 – and we always knew that there was an end story for them.
Greg When we brought the show back in 2016, we didn’t think it was going to be a long run. There’s an old saying in Hollywood, ‘Everybody wants a sequel until they get one’! You just don’t want to overstay your welcome, so that was also playing on our minds.
Let’s focus on the first episode – Jack and Victor finally get themselves mobile phones…
Ford It’s fairly commonplace that when today’s pensioners were growing up, they did so away from technology; they don’t really know what it’s about, and they’re not that interested. But at times, Jack and Victor can’t tolerate the fact that things are going on around them that they don’t have a grasp of.
Greg There’s a scene where Jack and Victor phone each other from the landing to the flat, and the joy in their faces of being able to talk to each other like that – that’s what made us laugh. The humour we wanted to mine from it was possibly not quite what you expect: we were trying to avoid the obvious targets!
How was the final day of filming? Did you both find it quite emotional?
Greg Well, we film out of sequence, so I think the last scene we filmed was actually from episode two! But when Ford and I wrote the last episode, we were both very quiet and sort of sat there, very contemplative, for a good couple of minutes. We’re not the type to sit there bawling, but we definitely felt it.
Ford This is the last time you’ll ever see Jack and Victor on TV, and then we’re doing shows at the Hydro [arena in Glasgow] in September, and that’ll be the last time you’ll ever see them on stage. That’s it for us – the cardigans and hats are going in an incinerator!