I could be Batman or Bond, but I’ll always be Clansman Bobby
Still Game star on the hit comedy show’s last-ever series
HE was there at the very beginning and Gavin Mitchell will be pulling pints to the bitter end as time is called on Still Game.
But while Bobby the barman has been the butt of the boozer’s barbs, he says the public has a very different take on the put-upon publican.
“People are really lovely about him,” says Gavin, chatting to in10 on the set of the sitcom that’s become a national treasure and returns to our screens next Sunday.
“He’s loveable and he’s not a bad guy. He tries to be gruff and show off, but people realise he’s a bit pathetic and soft and has a heart of gold.
“The public started to like him and now they just want to cuddle Bobby.”
If bar room bonding seems unlikely, just being Bobby at all was a surprise for Gavin.
His connections with Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill’s perky pensioners go away back to the mid-1990s.
“Greg and I were originally the old men in two sketches, sitting in a swing park with ice creams,” recalls Gavin. “Ford picked up on it and out of boredom the three of us started speaking as old men and found it really funny. Then we did it in Pulp Video with myself as Winston, who was really shoogly and a hell of a mess.
“I was going to do it on stage but at the last minute I had a kids’ TV show so I couldn’t do it. Paul (Riley) came in and the rest was history.”
Gavin finally donned the mullet, put on the chunky jewellery and slipped behind the bar of The Clansman. He’s been more than happily settled there, on and off, for the past couple of decades.
“It’s just like putting on a pair of comfy old slippers again,” he says, surveying the hostelry that’s at the heart of Craiglang. “The Clansman is like Bobby’s TARDIS and it’s lovely to be back.”
Gavin spent the festive period alongside The Krankies in the sell-out panto at the SEC Armadillo. And he was with Chris Pine for the big Netflix epic Outlaw King a few months back.
They are just a couple of the varied Greg Hemphill and Ford Kiernan.
roles Gavin has tackled over the years, from Taking Over The Asylum and Monarch of the Glen to Field Of Blood and Rab C Nesbitt.
Despite the wealth of work, Gavin knows that Still Game is what will always define him.
“No matter what we do, I don’t ever see it going away,” he admits. “I could be James Bond, Doctor Who or Batman, but I’ll still always be Bobby and have that on my gravestone.”
It’s not a prospect that bothers easy-going Gavin, which is just as well as the insult hurled at him by Jack and Victor is bandied at him in the street on a daily basis.
“They always say it as if it’s the first time I’ll have heard it,” smiles Gavin.
“And if I’d a pound for every time I’ve been in a pub and somebody said, ‘Should you not be behind the bar?’ I’d be a very rich man.”
Still Game took a screen break for seven years and then had a recordbreaking run of 21 dates at the SEC Hydro. It was such a phenomenon that even global superstars U2 were left perplexed by being unable to fit in their tour dates.
“My agent got in touch and I remember him saying, ‘Do you think you can fill the Hydro? It’s a big old place’,” recalls Gavin. “I was talking to Paul and asking him how many shows he thought we could do and when he said maybe 10, I said I thought we’d be pushing it at four. None of us can still believe what happened. U2 were getting in touch asking what Still Game was.”
Gavin says he knew ages back how he’d be saying his screen farewell to Bobby before the last-ever appearance, in another five-show run at the Hydro shows in September. “I was really happy with my ending in the series,” he confides. “Ford and Greg have cared for these characters for so long.
“They have taken care of everybody so beautifully. It’s worthy and right.” And sad as he will be to play the character for one last time, he insists it’s the correct decision.
“We all naturally felt that it was right to stop. There was a unified feeling.
“It feels like you’d rather go out on a high, rather than becoming stale and starting to slide.
“In the social media world we live in, there are a lot of haters and people are too quick to judge and be negative for the hell of it.
“So, you should always leave them wanting more.”
Having been acting for many years before Still Game came along, and working consistently during it, Gavin says he’s excited to see what lies ahead.
And while he won’t miss Bobby’s “terrible dress sense”, he’ll always have Clansman memories to hand – thanks to little mementoes picked up after filming finished.
■ Still Game will broadcast on BBC Scotland on Sunday, February 24.
Ford and Greg have cared for the cast. I was happy with my ending