Two Doors lockdown: Sitcom on ice because of pandemic
Actor reveals how Covid-19 has delayed filming of TV comedy but has raised the curtain on online dramas from Scotland’s national theatre
Jonathan Watson always hoped his most recent stage show would reach a wider audience, although he couldn’t have suspected it would be a virtual audience during a global pandemic.
The star of comedy classics like Rab C Nesbitt, City Lights and more recent hits like Bob Servant, featured alongside Still Game’s Maureen Carr in a small touring production of Frances Poet’s play Fibres last year.
Jonathan revealed the filming of a new series of hit sitcom Two Doors Down planned for June may have been postponed but some of his most moving lines from the play, telling the story of a wife nursing her Clyde shipyard worker husband through asbestos-related lung cancer, have gone around the world.
Moves were afoot to stage the show for a UK audience this year until the impact of coronavirus restrictions plunged all areas of life into uncertainty.
But when the National Theatre of Scotland responded to the Covid-19 crisis by announcing online project Scenes For Survival, Jonathan was among the first names they contacted.
He is among a host of Scottish actors, writers and directors who have signed up to create short pieces of digital theatre remotely from their personal spaces of isolation.
And the actor saw the perfect opportunity to bring the resonant message of Fibres to a wider audience.
He said: “There’s a part of the script called Jack’s Story and it’s when my character basically goes down to the audience and tells them how he got his start, how he switched from being a lagger to an electrician, how he was involved in the Jimmy Reid sit-in, how he managed to get a flower from the bouquet of support sent by John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
“It’s a beautifully-written speech
and I thought it was quite relevant to what is happening now, and I suggested we use that.”
The play received great reviews from both critics and audiences alike.
Jonathan said: “At The Beacon in Greenock, there was a guy and his mum and the two of them had tears in their eyes. She’d just lost her husband a few weeks before to mesothelioma [a cancer often linked to asbestosis].
“When they thank you for telling the story, it’s such a humbling experience. The hope was to take it on a nationwide tour because it’s relevant to other places in the UK. I hope we get the chance to do it again. I’d do everything I could to be part of it.”
The global coronavirus lockdown has severely impacted the entertainment world and, like everyone else, Jonathan is adapting to this “new normal”.
He had been due to start recording a new series of BBC sitcom Two Doors Down in June but filming schedules have had to be scrapped.
He said: “My year was planned out until this kicked in, and there’s only one project I lost out on because of it. I’m hoping everything else still happens. The filming schedule for Two Doors Down then got changed, too, so we’ll see what happens there. But there are certain things about it I’m quite enjoying.
“My wife and my son are all together in the house but we’re managing to keep out of each other’s way at times, too. I think it’s just a case of knuckling down and getting on with it.
“I’ve had a few projects on the backburner, things I’ve not been able to find time for, so these two things have kept me going – one is a writing thing and the other is a performing thing. I’ve also done Susan Calman’s show and Moray Hunter’s podcast.”
Recent repeats of Bob Servant, in which he stars with Brian Cox, are still available on the iPlayer.
“It got a great reception on Twitter, it’s been really positive,” he said.
Jonathan Watson is part of the National Theatre of Scotland’s Scenes for Survival project, a forthcoming online season of digital artworks in response to Covid-19 www.nationaltheatre-scotland.com