If You Read One Thing…
Make it our interview with Jordan Young, River City gangster and Scot Squad beat cop
HE is simultaneously the worst gangster in Scotland, and the worst policeman in Scotland. But that’s exactly what Jordan Young loves about working on the country’s biggest drama and its funniest satire.
Even though he spends his professional life either bringing to life self-styled Goodfella Alex Murdoch in the soap River City, or hard-man beat cop Jack Mclaren in comedy series Scot Squad, the actor is quick to insist that he’s nothing like either man. He hopes not anyway.
“They’re wildly different characters,” Jordan says, “but if I take a step back there are similarities there, and I pray to God it’s not got anything to do with me.
“They’re both arrogant, they both love themselves, they both think they’re ladies men, they’re both confident and they both always think they’re in charge.
“I hope I’m not like that, I hope it’s just a coincidence and there’s not a subconscious layer of all that in me.
“I am nothing like Alex – he’s always cool and smooth and tries to be serious, but I’m quite goofy. I’m also not as hard as Jack is – he’s very hard.”
Jordan thinks the two would be some duo if they ever faced off against each other.
“I don’t think Alex is very good at being a gangster, he’s always the one that gets himself into trouble and messes up. While ‘Robocop’ Jack Mclaren thinks he’s brilliant, but he’s not as good as he think he is.
“It’d be a match made in heaven, a rubbish gangster and a rubbish cop never really solving anything.”
The Fife-born star is just about as happy as he has ever been professionally as, like any actor working at the moment, he has a new found appreciation for his craft after a five-month Covid-19 shutdown that threatened, and continues to endanger, an entire industry.
He slipped into Alex’s smart suit in September and was back menacing up the screen with crime boss dad Lenny (Frank Gallagher) half-brother Rory (David Paisley) and child Jessie (Kirsty Pickering) as River City made a triumphant return to BBC One and BBC Scotland.
With social distancing, small clusters of actors’ pods, tennis balls being used for line of sight and strict infection control, it’s a different world than anyone at the Dumbarton studios is used to, but they’re all just happy the doors are open.
“I definitely have a new appreciation and told the boys that I’ll never take them for granted now, whatever the future holds for my character, it’s an amazing place to work and has been incredibly good to me.
“Covid and lockdown have shown me just how much it means to me and how much it means to everybody
“After everything the entire world has been through, I had as many dark moments as a lot of folk. I think my
“Covid and lockdown have shown me just me” how much the role means to
main thing was worrying about work as contracts were cancelled, and the whole industry was on its knees – there is no theatre industry at the moment.
“TV and films are slowly coming back, but in the darkest days, if felt like it was never going get there. Like everyone else, I was terrified about paying the mortgage and all of that, so being back is bliss, absolute bliss.
“Usually we have a three-month gap between filming and picking up stories in River City – this time it was six.”
And some of the plotlines have been altered to reflect what’s happening on the other side of the TV screen.
“Some big strands like the murder of Joe, the naughty policeman, will continue, but some smaller strands are not, and we’re living in a Covid world, picking up with the world as it is now.
“Lots of things have happened, people have been isolating together.
“We’re all working in pods, and I’m in with Frank (Lenny), David (Rory) and Kirsty (Jessie), with no crossovers. At the moment it’s a bit like a ghost town and they’re keeping the cast numbers down to a minimum.”
Jordan has returned to a typically action-packed River City storyline, and his character Alex has been thrown in at the deep end of family drama.
“It’s been great – a kidnapping creates a bit of a vacuum within the family, so there’s a sort of power struggle going on. As usual, Alex thinks he’s in charge
and in control, but he soon realises that he’s not in charge of anything really – a bit like me in real life!”
Since arriving in River City’s Glasgow neighbourhood of Shieldinch in 2013, Jordan’s had a run of deadly and dramatic soap storylines. Blood-soaked weddings, baby tragedies, gang warfare, GBH, sibling rivalry, and a never-ending saga of familial and criminal intrigue.
Jordan has been delighted to share the screen with new cast member Kirsty Pickering, who plays his teenage, non-binary, child, Jessie. He said he was delighted the series was looking at the subject of gender.
“That’s what a soap does, isn’t it, it takes an issue and hopefully portrays it properly and gives it great respect. It’s something I have to educate myself on, as do many families and areas of society. If we want to progress and be inclusive, there’s a lot to learn.”
While his constantly serious character has rarely been seen to crack a smile – never mind a joke – in real life Jordan is full of self-deprecating humour and is renowned for being among the funniest of the cast and crew.
For the big return, he reports that spirits have been high, even though the likely lads group of on-set trouble makers – including the likes of Iain Robertson, Stephen Purdon and Scott Fletcher – have been limiting their cheek and ribbing to digital exchanges.
“Me and wee Scott Fletcher were in doing camera tests the week before we started, to help directors figure out how to film when we’re two metres apart, and usually you’re right next to someone and can be whispering away, but I looked at him and said, ‘I cannae say anything to you.’ So it’s impossible to gossip about folk!
“Thankfully,” he joked, “I’ve hardly seen the boys.
We’ve had to keep the cheek for social media and lots of Whatsapp messages. We do chat a lot which is great.”
He’s even been back in to do pickup shooting for the next series of Scot Squad, after being called in for more scenes to reflect life in the pandemic. The series returns to screens early in 2021, and then Jordan’s hoping they’ll be called back for a new run of episodes.
The nature of the popular show actually lends itself to social distancing and acting pods as it is naturally split into sections, with groups of two characters off on their own improvised comedy law enforcement missions.
Jordan has loved his gig as the most stoic narcissist on television, PC Jack Mclaren, and is always teamed up with partner PC Sarah Fletcher, played by Jordan’s close friend Sally Reid.
“On the day they shut down Scot Squad, and Sally’s last day on the series and they gathered us all round and said they were shutting down – there were a lot of tears because people realised that the series wasn’t going to be finished.
“On the last day, it was one of the weirdest days I’ve ever had, with that kind of heavy atmosphere and trying to do improvised comedy in the lashing rain, Glasgow city centre was eerily quiet.
“Thankfully, we got asked back recently to tweak some scenes to make them more Covid-related, so it’s more relevant to the world now.
“It was just brilliant to get back and have a wee bit of normality. It felt great to finish that series with a smile on your face instead of being all depressed.”
While he understands the grave nature of the challenges people have been facing, it’s clearly in Jordan’s
“On the last day of filming there were a ” lot of tears
nature to be upbeat and to make the best of things.
When his annual panto season, this time at the King’s in Edinburgh, was cancelled, he has focused on the fact that he’ll get to spend Christmas at home with his young family for the first time.
And over the lockdown summer, the keen runner got even fitter. Having the time to be out on the road and in the hills much more, he has discovered a whole new passion for the outdoors.
Jordan, who turned 40 in January, has run half marathons to raise money for Muscular Dystrophy UK, in memory of his two uncles who had died of the condition. He has recently grown increasingly tempted by the prospect of a marathon.
“During lockdown, I ran like Forrest Gump! Every second day I did 10-12 miles – even 17 sometimes.
“I’ve always wanted to do a marathon, you’ve got to put in the hours. Because I’ve got young kids, I’d feel selfish going out for a three-hour run on a Sunday. Before I’m 50, though, I’ll run a full marathon.
“I’ve been keeping up my half marathon pace and I also started going up through the hills and forests, which has been great. It’s the most amazing, refreshing, soul-cleansing thing in the world to know that you’re miles away from anyone, in the rain, up a hill, getting chased by a cow. It’s amazing and I really, really love it.”
River City is on BBC Scotland, Mondays 10pm and BBC One Scotland, Tuesdays, 8pm. Scot Squad will return early in 2021.