Having The Last Laugh
Star Jonathan Watson looks back on four decades as a Scottish comedy icon
IT’S been described by even the BBC as “Britain’s best kept sitcom secret”, but Two Doors Down star Jonathan Watson has his own thoughts on why that is all changing. “I think there are quite a few things now that are ‘best kept secrets’ – it’s a term I’ve come across before,” he says.
“I wonder if it’s in part to do with how programmes aren’t repeated in the same way they were even five years ago.
“When I made Naked Video, City Lights or Rab C Nesbitt, the programme would go out, and then it might be repeated a few months later. That helped cement it in people’s minds. You don’t have that now. Everything’s on the iplayer.
“Also, it came out on BBC Two along with some big shows with high profile casts. However, the figures show that, last year, Two Doors Down was one of BBC Two’s most watched comedies. So I think this time round it’s had more of a push.
“It might very well be the strategy used to promote it in the early days wasn’t good at putting it in people’s awareness.”
Having already appeared in several iconic Scottish comedies, Jonathan insists it was the quality of both the initial script and cast which, in 2013, first attracted him to play Colin, who lives the titular Two Doors Down from the show’s main characters, Eric and Beth Baird, played by Alex Norton and Arabella Weir.
“The turnaround was pretty swift. We filmed the one-hour special in 10 days, working from eight to eight. And of course we didn’t have the luxury of having sets out in Dumbarton. It was actually filmed in a council house in Paisley.”
Four series on, does he think Colin has changed? “He’s very much the same character as he was in series one,” Jonathan insists. “I think one benefit you have, as a show runs, is that not only the actors but also the writers become more acquainted with the characters and I think, for that reason, it’s more fun to play.
“As far as developing, he hasn’t gone on to any great