Only an Excuse?

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Only An Excuse? is a Scottish football comedy sketch show.

Starring actor and comedian Jonathan Watson, the show features impersonations of some of Scottish football's great characters such as Denis Law, Tommy Burns, Barry Ferguson, Sir Alex Ferguson and Frank McAvennie, as well as caricatures of the "typical" Rangers and Celtic fan.

The programme started in the 1990s - originally as a double act of Rangers fan Watson and Celtic fan Tony Roper - and since it has become a traditional fixture on Hogmanay. The increasing popularity of the programme has seen it transferred to the theatre with the most recent performance of Only An Excuse taking place at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, in September 2004, while DVDs of the programme are regularly released.

Jonathan Watson also appears in a spin-off called "Only a Wee Excuse" on Tam Cowan's weekly "Offside" programme up until the last series Watson's slot was basically a scaled-down version of the full show but from the last series onwards saw Watson appearing in the studio to perform (without costume) his impersonations. Another noticeable difference is that Watson starts each segment in his own voice and sets the context and then ends again in his own voice saying "And that Tam was the week that wisnae".

[edit] Cast

Jonathan Watson
Tony Roper - (1993-94)
Alistair McGowan - (1996-98)
Greg Hemphill - (1995)
Lewis MacLeod - (1995)
Gordon Kennedy - (1996)
Grant Smeaton - (from 1997)
Paul Reid - (2000-01)
Geoff Boyz - (2001)

Crew:

Philip Differ
Bob Black
Brendan McGeever
Rab Christie
Rikki Brown
Tam Cowan
Niall Clark
Ian Pattison
Philip Differ - Director / Producer

[edit] Trivia

When filming an advert Chick Young, a well-known Scottish journalist and frequent source of material for Watson was asked to make his trademark laugh sound more like Watson's which according to the makers of the ad was the correct laugh.