Kingskettle lad Jordan Young is best known for playing slick businessman Alex Murdoch in the BBC soap River City.
The Fifer’s storylines since landing that River City role in 2013 have included his gangster father Lenny trying to shoot him in the Christmas special three years later.
But it was a pricing gun rather than a .45 which led to a memorable comedy showdown in Still Game, which today celebrates its 20th anniversary.
Jordan appeared in the episode Big Yin
In 2004, he played Kevin, the supermarket bully who terrorised Jack and Victor’s pal Winston Ingram (Paul Riley) in ‘Big Yin’.
The episode remains a fan favourite and in August 2022 was voted the best-ever on IMDb by devotees of the series written by Greg Hemphill and Ford Kiernan.
It sees Winston – “too fond of the pub and the bookies” and struggling to make ends meet on his pension – get a job at Food Fare in Craiglang.
Delight quickly turns to dismay as Jordan’s alter-ego Kevin starts to pick on the pensioner.
“How’s an auld duffer like you end up working here?” he asks.
“It’s a young man’s game – stacking shelves, pricing, trolley recovery.”
Winston tells him that’s nonsense and he’s perfectly capable of putting in a shift.
“Is that right, aye? You’ve only got six trollies and you’re sweating and struggling to control them – because you’re old!”
Winston tries to ignore the taunts before things eventually lead to a supermarket showdown between Winston and Kevin over the pricing guns!
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly has nothing on this duel in the aisles.
Of course, Winston thinks he has beaten Kevin, but Kevin has the last laugh as Winston has just stamped all the tins of sweetcorn with a £9.99 pricing sticker.
Winston later punches Kevin in the face before resigning his post.
Jordan’s career would go from strength to strength and he became a key member of the National Theatre of Scotland’s hit military play Black Watch which toured the world.
He had a part in the James McAvoy film Filth before getting the role of Alex McAllister, who discovered he was actually the son of local gangster Lenny Murdoch.
He took the family name and became Alex Murdoch.
Jordan also plays ladies’ man PC Jack McLaren in Scot Squad, the supposed fly-on-the-wall documentary about the first United Scottish Police Force.
His is also a regular on the panto circuit where he is a huge favourite.
Jordan spoke in April 2022 on the Natural Wonders podcast about how he wanted to keep his Fife accent when he started drama college in Edinburgh.
He admitted spending nine years in Edinburgh “neutralised” his accent slightly but his original Fife drawl comes back when he is in the company of his pals.
As for his time on Still Game?
Jordan has never forgotten his role in Craiglang and before the final episode in 2019 he described Still Game as “the most successful sitcom to ever come out of Scotland”.
The dad-of-one congratulated Ford and Greg on the show’s “phenomenal success”.
Scots actor Cameron Jack – whose credits include The Dark Knight Rises – tweeted that he knew Jordan would go on to be a star after seeing him in Big Yin.
He said: “You were magic in it.
“Remember thinking what a belting actor that young boy is when I watched it.
“You were a cheeky wee fud in it. They created something truly special.”
Still Game has become a national institution since it first hit TV screens back in 2002.
Fans were gutted when it originally ended in 2007.
But the affection in which it’s held was evident in 2014 when a stage version played to more than 200,000 people in 21 sell-out shows at the Hydro in Glasgow.
The ninth and final series of the BBC sitcom aired in 2019.
Co-creators Hemphill and Kiernan have ruled out bringing it back.
Hemphill said: “I’m sure folk know that it all came about because Ford and I would tell each other tales about my grandfather Sammy and his Uncle Barney.
“But in particular I remember going to see my grandfather as a kid and him saying something quite shocking.
“I was laughing, my dad got really upset with him and that tickled Sammy pink. It always stuck with me. I think we all know an outrageous pensioner.
“Ford and I started thinking about the secret lives of pensioners and what happens when the children aren’t there.
“We had a lot to say about them, especially how they shouldn’t be ignored.”
Jack and Victor are coming to Dundee
Hemphill and Kiernan got back together to release Jack and Victor Blended Scotch Whisky and Still Gin to celebrate the show’s 20th anniversary.
The comedy duo will kick off the first leg of their signing tour in Edinburgh on Wednesday before heading north towards Dundee.
The pair will meet fans and sign bottles at Co-op in Barnhill from 2.30pm before appearing at the Co-op in Auchterarder from 4pm to 5pm.
Meanwhile, Gavin Mitchell, Jane McCarry, and Sanjeev Kohli, who play Boaby the barman, Isa the gossip and shopkeeper Navid, will be taking fans on a trip down memory lane at Dundee’s Whitehall Theatre on November 4 and the Webster Theatre in Arbroath on November 13 to mark the 20th anniversary of the sitcom.
Gavin said: “You can’t get away from the recognition.
“I was in Barbados playing Humphrey Bogart in a stage play of Casablanca and during rehearsals someone said I should go the beach bar as it was happy hour.
“Somebody recommended a coconut daiquiri and I was standing there looking out at this Caribbean sunset when I heard, “Boaby, pints!”
“It was two Scots and suddenly I was transported back to Craiglang.”
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