Boyleing points

FRANKIE BOYLE’S TOUR OF SCOTLAND BBC2, 10pm

IS Frankie Boyle going soft in his old age? The Glaswegian comic, famed for a pitchblack, boundary-pushing brand of humour, has rarely been far from controversy since his first appearance on panel show Mock the Week in 2005.

Now, in his 48th year, Frankie is feeling reflective. Despite living in Glasgow, he hasn’t toured his native Scotland in over a decade.

So, by way of preparation for his new Full Power theatre tour, he’s going back on the road to gig at some colourful smaller venues around the country.

As well as performing comedy, Frankie is keen to get under the skin of his home country.

So in this four-part series, he will explore and document what he sees, and make unlikely diversions between gigs, meeting the people he thinks could help him understand Scotland in 2019.

In tonight’s first leg, he travels from Aberdeen to Oban, along the way meeting a vhermit, joining the Findhorn commune and going underneath a mountain.

Frankie also visits the town of Inveraray, where he chats to Andy Wightman, an MSP and campaigner for land reform, who explains how and why more than half of Scotland is estimated to be owned by fewer than 500 people.

At the end of each episode, Frankie rolls into his destination town (in this case, Oban) and takes his fresh material onto the stage.

He says: “In a lot of farther-flung places, people are guarded at first, but as soon as they get to know you, they really hate you.”

And there he is, the brilliantly pessimistic and funny Frankie Boyle we are all familiar with.

As part of his Tour of Scotland Frankie Boyle goes underground in Cruachan Power Station Gathering comic material as he goes, Frankie meets MSP Andy Wightman, Mari Hollander of the Findhorn Foundation and Jake Williams, a hermit living in rural Aberdeenshire who has an unusual holiday let