Barney Thomson, awkward, diffident, Glasgow barber, lives a life of desperate mediocrity and his uninteresting life is about to go from 0 to 60 in five seconds, as he enters the grotesque and comically absurd world of the serial killer.
A remote farmhouse on an isolated island. Strangers with English accents. Quarrels and a lonely child. The year is 1946. The man is George Orwell. The book he has come to write is Nineteen Eighty-four.
Trilogy of one-act plays based on short stories by Lewis Grassic Gibbon. ‘Clay’ is the story of a men who neglects his wife in favour of his land. ‘Smeddum’ is the story of a matriarch’s attempt to control her brood. ‘Greenden’ is the story of a city woman moving to the country with...
The first part of Bill Douglas' influential trilogy harks back to his impoverished upbringing in early-'40s Scotland. Cinema was his only escape - he paid for it with the money he made from returning empty jam jars - and this escape is reflected most closely at this time of his life as an...
Jake lives in the shadow of his dying grandfather, who was once the town's toughest hard man. Despite their hatred of each other, Jake's sole aim is to be as tough as the old man was. One day in Jake's life, as he drifts, drinks and fights, leads to a bleak realisation.
An episode of the BBC drama series Second City Firsts. Jackie is leaving the army. While waiting for her car to arrive, she encounters Corporal Harvey, the woman who used to be her lover.
It's the day of the Orange Parade in Glasgow, but for Jon, the thrill of leading the parade and swinging the mace soon turns to horror as he learns the truth behind the costumes and songs.
When Alison unexpectedly falls pregnant after a brief encounter with Alex (David Hayman's first TV role) they decide to marry. The joining of two seemingly different families opens into a witty and audacious tale, which caused uproar after its first broadcast in 1972. An early triumph for Peter...
Tony Roper wrote 'The Steamie' for Glasgow's Mayfest in 1987. Return to Hogmany 1957 when a fiesty group of Glasgow women; Mrs Culfeathers, Dolly, Doreen and the irrepressible Magrit, all meet at The Steamie to do the traditional family wash before the New Year. The Steamie is a hilarious cameo of...
David lives with a woman nearly twice his age, who decides to make him her fantasy child. It is a role our young hero cannot resist, especially when David's parents come to dinner and he reads an extract from a story he has written...
It's Laura's first job and she is anxious to do well, but her instinctive empathy with the elderly people in her care puts her in conflict with her colleagues.
Everybody tells Onnie to steer clear of Patsy Gallaher, that he's bad news, but Onnie doesn't see it. Gallaher is Onnie's friend, and he believes friends should be loyal to one another.
On Christmas Eve, a Glasgow grandmother tells her grandchildren the story of how she met Elvis Presley in March 1960 when he stopped off at Prestwick Airport on his way back from Germany to America. She goes on to announce to the children that the King is their grandad.
