Jack Docherty 10 things that changed my life
1 SEEING MY FIRST COMEDY SCRIPT
At Christmas, aged 10, I was given a book of Morecambe and Wise scripts written by Eddie Braben. I was already falling in love with comedy, and this opened a window on how it was written. Even just seeing the layout of a script was fascinating for a nascent comedy geek.
This led me to write a play for the papiermâché puppets made by my primary school class. It was performed for the school and after, backstage, I proudly took the plaudits from the teachers, who I realise, only now, were probably lying when they told me it was brilliant.
2 FIRST TIME AT EASTER ROAD
Probably that same year my dad took me to Easter Road for the first time. My dad worked in a bank and one of his clients was Tommy Younger, a director of Hibs at the time.
So we sat in the directors’ box. In the directors’ lounge before the game there were free pies. I still can’t quite get over it. Free pies! As many as I wanted!
I remember walking up the steps and seeing the pitch for the first time and I couldn’t believe it was in colour. (We had a black and white telly). It was Hibs, 8 Ayr United 1. I thought it would be like that every week. Little did I know the lifetime of pain that awaited me.
But it was all worth it for May 21, 2016 when finally Hibs win the cup after 114 years. I’d given up hope of ever seeing it.
3 MEETING MY COMEDY BROTHERS
I USED to cycle home from secondary school, all the way down Harrison Drive. One day, for some unknown reason, I took a left into Harrison Gardens and bumped into a guy I vaguely knew called Pete Baikie. He then introduced me to Moray Hunter, and they invited me to join their comedy group The Bodgers.
It gave me a lot of confidence that these older guys (23! Moray had a moustache!) wanted to work with this 18-year-old. I would never have had the courage to set something up myself. We did a show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ... and our own grand adventure began. A lifetime of friendship and creative collaboration followed.
There’s no better place to shape your writing and performing than in the forge of the fringe. You learn year on year and meet and see other performers from all over the world. It’s one of the great arts communities and I can’t understate its importance and influence in my life. And I’d never have experienced any of it, if, that day, I’d taken my usual route home.
Sometimes life is all about unexpected left turns.
4 THE MOUNTAINS
At about 14 I went on a school trip to Glen Etive. We climbed the Three Sisters and the Aonach Eagach ridge. I’ve loved being in the hills and mountains ever since. I’ve taken four trips with my kids to hike in Yosemite, but the really big one awaits. In lockdown year I’d planned a trip to trek in the Himalayas with some friends but it got cancelled, of course.
Hopefully we’ll get the chance again someday. When lockdown hit, I was in Australia and we got the last flight out before they closed the border.
A lucky break, otherwise, I might still be there, playing Chief Commissioner Bruce Miekelson of the Unified Australian Police Force on Channel 9.
5 THE KIDS
Well, I’ve mentioned them now, and I’m sure it’s a common answer, but my kids must be on this list (biological, step and surrogate.)
Nothing kills your ego (and feeds it) quite like helping create life. Suddenly you’re no longer the most important person in the room. And then one day these young adults turn up and keep you in touch with music and books and films.
I like nothing more than when the house is filled with a bunch of twentysomethings and we’re just hanging out, eating, drinking, watching movies.
There’s no question I learn more from young people as life goes on. Keeps you sharp, connected.
I’m currently collaborating on a project with a 25-year-old writer and that’s a fascinating process. She also helped a lot with Nothing But. Getting the eyes of a 25-year-old woman on a show about a 58-year-old man can be a sobering, challenging but, ultimately, invaluable, experience.
6 GOING BALD
Had I not lost my hair I imagine I would have had a career as a romantic lead in a series of international blockbusters. But then I would have had to move to Hollywood, and I’d have missed the Old Country, so going bald was probably for the best in the long run.
7 KATE, MY WIFE
It’s the second marriage for both of us and we’ve been together about 16 years now. Divorce, particularly when you have kids, is without question a lifechanging event. You step on the seemingly thick ice, it cracks and splinters, and it’s not only you that’s in danger of falling in.
But I hope that my kids benefit from seeing a happy relationship – I’m not convinced staying together “for the kids” is the best idea.
Kate is not only my best friend, but also my best critic. She’s encouraged me to add truth and vulnerability to my writing, leading me to doing what I hope is my best work, shows like my current one, Nothing But.
It touches on a lot of this stuff: heartbreak, second chances, romantic obsession, the ups and downs of parenthood. But in a funny way, I hope.
8 BEER
At about the age of 15, my mate and I were paid to paint a flat in Stockbridge. When we finished, the owner asked if we’d like a beer. It was my first. I finished it and thought “you know what, I’d like another beer”.
And since then, more times than I’d care to admit, I’ve sat around with pals, beer in hand, shooting the breeze, letting time slip away.
Without it I’m sure I would have achieved a lot more, but not had half as much fun.
As Homer Simpson said: “Beer. The cause of, and the solution to, all of life’s problems.”
9 STUDYING LAW
I went to a classic 1970s school which had a conveyor belt to “the professions” – rolling out doctors, accountants, lawyers. Sometimes you have to go down the wrong path to find the right one.
I can still remember the exact moment I realised it wasn’t for me – in the middle of reading a case about the common ownership of tenement drainpipes.
I dropped out after two years to chase my dream of working in comedy. Had I studied English like everyone said I should, I might have enjoyed it, not dropped out, and I’d be wearing a nice sweater and cords and teaching Gerard Manley Hopkins to bemused 16-year-olds to this day.
10 NOT DYING
Chasing the ball into the street, caught in a riptide, dodging the falling rocks. All those times in my life when it could have gone the other way. Luck is such a huge part of life. As my friend John Sparkes said, “my ambition is to live forever. So far, so good”.