highlandland

The stories of Neil Munro (written between 1905 and 1932) have been adapted for both the big and small screen several times. Fans should check out earlier adaptations and homages - the Ealing comedy "The Maggie" and the Scottish folk album "Highland Voyage", which are currently available on DVD and CD respectively.

The first TV series "Para Handy Master Mariner", starring Duncan Macrae, was broadcast in 1959 (with lots of location footage, apparently) but sadly - like a lot of BBC shows of that era - no film of these original six episodes exist today.

In 1965, "Para Handy", the second incarnation of Munro's tales, debuted as part of the "Comedy Playhouse" series of pilots - and two series (broadcast 1966) were commissioned. This time, Roddy MacMillan played the captain Para Handy (in the books, his real name is revealed as "Peter MacFarlane" - but he's never named that in this seres), with Alex McAvoy joining the cast as the (elderly looking) cabin boy "Sunny Jim". Again, all of these 1960s episodes have been wiped.

However, in 1973, "Para Handy" returned again - with an hour-long special remake of one of the older shows, featuring the 1966 cast now filmed in colour (to celebrate the BBC's 50th anniversary). This show proved popular, and so another six episodes (all colour remakes of older scripts) were made. Strangely, they were contemporary - based in the seventies - and filmed on a Clydeside that was visibly declining on-screen. Some of these episodes are still regularly shown as part of Hogmanay scheduling on BBC Scotland.

Earlier this year, a DVD was released on all five remaining "Para Handy" episodes from the seventies, along with a "promo" film for the "Highland Voyage" album. Couthy, cosy and kind - there's no denying, that with his crew of bitter, delusional and trapped puffer-men, Neil Munro had managed to create the perfect sit-com set-up a good fifty years before "Bilko" (whom Para Handy resembles at times).

The series was resurrected yet again in 1994, with Rab C. Nesbitt's Gregor Fisher in the role (arguably, the closest depiction of the Captain to the original stories). For more info see "The Tales of Para Handy".

Broadcast between 1994 and 1995, with 6 episodes one year and 3 episode the next, "The Tales of Para Handy" was the third version to be televised of Neil Munro's hugely popular (in Scotland, at least) tales, originally written as newspaper columns in the Glasgow Herald between 1905 and the early 1930s. Previous series had starred Duncan Macrae (1959) and Roddy Macmillan (1963, 1974-5) as the Captain, and this time the "chust sublime" Gregor Fisher donned the authentic red beard and bowler hat for the role.

Rather than the previous sit-com format, 1994's version was a longer comedy drama, of a style that would later become popular Sunday night entertainment with shows like "Ballykissangel" and "Hamish Macbeth". Unlike these two contemporary shows, "Tales of Para Handy" takes place in the early 1930s (possibly 1934-5, just after the final stories were published) and makes a decent job of portraying the Scottish west coast at the time. The classic tales of the Glasgow "puffer" (steam vessels similar to barges, that ran goods and trade all over the West Coast between about 1860 and 1960) were sometimes adapted from the original Munro stories, and sometimes written from scratch (usually by Bob Black, writer of "Scotch and Wry" and "City Lights"). However, these stories were possibly a little too "couthy" and low-key for mass appeal, and the series never really took off. Possibly this is why they only made three episodes in series two (or possibly it was because Ricki Fulton's health was deteriorating).

The cast included Ricki Fulton as Dan the Engineer (the last major role by this Scottish comedy legend) and Andrew Fairlie as Davie "Sunny Jim" Green (Alex McAvoy, who played Jim in the 1960s and 1970s, had a cameo in the first episode of series one). Sean Scanlan played Dougie - but sometimes his acting, all jiggled shoulders and shouted lines in semi-exasperation, could irritate, and he's the main reason why I take one point off this show (the other is its occasional lack of pacing).

Incidentally, many Scottish comedy stars of the time played cameos in the show, and even a young David Tennant (Doctor Who) can be seen in the penultimate show of the second season.

This series has never been completely available to buy. The first six episodes were available on two BBC videos in 1995, but these now regularly go for around £25 each on Ebay. The last three episodes have never been made available anywhere - although a cassette of Neil Munro stories, released on the back of the series and read by Gregor Fisher, was also available through the BBC in 1995.

Hopefully, the recent DVD issue of the Roddy Macmillan era "The Vital Spark" series will soon see a DVD set of this excellent mid-1990s comedy drama.

From the opening credit sequence, sung by the two female leads I think (Doon MacKichan, incidentally, is so far nowhere to be seen) this first episode of new Scottish sit-com "Feel the Force" was awful in every way. The two leads have the comic subtly and timing of a fatal school bus crash - and the script is full of bland, grey non-jokes performed with mugging repetitiveness (and two vaguely funny ones in the whole half hour; although the Chinese Madonna gag was driven into the ground and then stamped on until dead). There's no plot, or characters, and the only thing of real interest in the whole show was: HOW DOES AN ORDINARY POLICE OFFICER MANAGE TO AFFORD A FLAT IN EDINBURGH NEW TOWN? Really, this is bad. Scotland, hang our comic heads in shame. With England constantly churning out fine sit-coms and comics, BBC Wales riding high on the back of Russell T Davis, and the Irish geniuses of Linehan and Matthew still casting a long shadow over TV comedy in general - why is Scotland still trying to rewrite old "Naked Video" scripts? With a few exceptions (some, but by no means all, of the work of the Scotch & Wry and Chewing the Fat mafias) we never seem to be able to make people laugh. Rikki Fulton relied upon old Two Ronnies scripts, and Scotland's only true comic genius, Armando Iannucci, left after 18 months of making cups of tea for other people as a trainee at Radio Scotland.

Since the year 2000 we've had 'Caledonian MacBrains', 'The Karen Dunbar Show', 'Overnite Express', 'Meet the Magoons', 'Snoddy' (another police sit-com) and about eighteen thousand episodes of 'Still Game' (or 'Still Going, Oh Christ, When Will We Stop?' as it will soon be called). None of these have ever shook the world like Ricky Gervaise, Simon Pegg, or even Peter Kay (he's relatively crap now, but still better than Ford Kiernan - can't we sent a raiding party down to Bolton and steal him as a true Scot?) One day, we should have a sit-com to rank alongside 'Fawlty Towers' or 'Hancock'. And if you think that's unlikely, or we'll only ever appeal to people within 30 miles of the Clyde - ask yourself ... why?