Only an Excuse?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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" Celtic and Rangers fan.
Contents |
[edit] History
Only an Excuse? first aired as a one-off special on BBC Radio Scotland, prior to the 1987 Scottish Cup Final. It was a parody of the five-part BBC Scotland television documentary Only a Game?[1], which had aired in Scotland prior to the 1986 World Cup Finals and comprehensively documented the history of Scottish football. The documentary was narrated by Scottish author and poet William McIlvanney. Jonathan Watson expertly mimicked McIlvanney's distinctive voice as narrator of the radio spoof.
After further occasional radio specials (the second of which was titled Only Another Excuse?), the show made the switch to TV in 1993, retaining its original double act of Rangers fan Watson and Celtic fan Tony Roper. Its first episode replaced the recently-retired Rikki Fulton's long-running annual sketch show Scotch and Wry in the Hogmanay TV schedules—a show in which, coincidentally, Roper had also been a regular performer. A new episode of Only an Excuse? has been shown every New Year's Eve since then.
2007's Hogmanay show was aired on BBC One Scotland at 10:45pm.[2] 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. The scripts of the early theatre shows, written by Philip Differ, were published in the book Only an Excuse?: The Scripts by Mainstream Publishing in 1995, and DVDs of the programme are regularly released.
[edit] Spin-offs
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, without costume, to perform his impersonations (as in his theatre performances). 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)
- Marj Hogarth - {N/A}
[edit] Crew
- Philip Differ
- Bob Black
- Brendan McGeever
- Rab Christie
- Rikki Brown
- Tam Cowan
- Niall Clark
- Andy Bollen
- Ian Pattison
- Philip Differ - Director / Producer
[edit] Trivia
 |
Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- 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.[citation needed]
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Only an Excuse? at bbc.co.uk Comedy Guide
- Only an Excuse? at the Internet Movie Database
- Only an Excuse? at The Comedy Guide
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
This BBC Television-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
This article relating to a TV programme from the UK is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
