Scenic coastal town Broughty Ferry’s finest comedy character, Bob Servant, gets the television treatment this week and fittingly is played by Dundee’s greatest actor, Brian Cox. The Hollywood star told Jack McKeown about bringing it all back home.
Former cheeseburger “magnate”, window cleaning vendor and proud owner of an extension, Bob Servant is a self-styled “legend of Dundee”. He’s the creation of Broughty Ferry novelist Neil Forsyth, who came up with the character when he needed an alter ego for email exchanges with online spammers.
Forsyth (34) chose the name so he could sign off emails with: “Your Servant, Bob Servant.”
His absurd exchanges tying some of the internet’s most frustrating villains in knots were published in a volume that Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh selected as one of the funniest books of all time.
Delete This At Your Peril was followed by Bob Servant: Hero of Dundee, and then turned into a six-part radio series, The Bob Servant Emails featuring Brian Cox.
The new TV series begins with the sudden death of Broughty Ferry’s sitting MP in a tragic fairground accident.
The resulting by-election could change the political map of the UK. Bob Servant has been waiting his whole life for this level of attention and launches his political campaign with a combination of chutzpah and cheerful misguidedness. Cox’s involvement attracted a high level of talent to the show. Only An Excuse star Jonathan Watson plays his long-suffering friend and campaign manager Frank, and Gary: Tank Commander’s Greg McHugh puts in a winning turn as a Broughty FM DJ baffled by Servant’s off-kilter take on politics. But perhaps the biggest star is the town of Broughty Ferry, which receives a national broadcast for the first time.Filming Bob Servant: click here for a special photo galleryWhile its titular star is not always shown in the best light, the coastal town looks fantastic.
“This show’s going to drive up property prices in the Ferry,” Cox (66) chuckled. “I’d move there now if I were you.
“I was on GMTV last week and Lorraine Kelly kept pointing at the screen and shouting, ‘I walk my dog there’.”
For Cox, one of the series’ greatest achievements is showcasing the Dundee humour.
“What we’ve done is unique,” he said. “No one has heard the Dundee accent in this context before. When people talk about the Scottish sense of humour they really mean west coast humour. Hopefully people are going to see that there’s a lot more to it.”
The character of Bob Servant reached Cox’s ears through a series of coincidences Servant himself would approve of.
“My old friend David Stirling is a farmer from Arbroath he helped organise a big do for me when I renewed my wedding vows five or six years ago.
“He and Neil happened to be at the same pub in New York watching Dundee United play Rangers and Neil told him about his Bob Servant book, mentioning that he would love me to play him.”
He received the scripts and agreed to do the radio adaptation virtually on the spot. “I had a cursory flick through the script but basically I agreed to do it sight unseen. I have so many scripts and other things that reading is a curse as much as a pleasure but this was a Dundee boy and I had heard good things about Bob Servant.
“As it turns out Neil is something of a genius. I only really read the scripts for the first time when we were in the studio and I could not stop corpsing. We kept having to re-record things because I would burst out laughing.”
The six-part Bob Servant Emails was broadcast on Radio Scotland in 2010 and then on Radio 4.
They led to a call for a television series and Cox was more than happy to reprise the role. Six episodes of Bob Servant Independent started on January 23.
Cox praised his co-star Jonathan Watson, who plays his long-suffering sidekick.
“Jonathan Watson is outstanding as Frank. In the books Frank is shady and slightly two dimensional but Jonathan really fleshes him out. He has this hangdog look that is just perfect for the part.”
Although he played Daphne’s dad in Frasier, comedy is not something the Dundee-born actor is known for. He made his name playing memorable villains from Hannibal Lecter in Manhunter to King Agamemnon in Troy, Stryker in X-2 and Ward Abbott in The Bourne Supremacy.
“I’ve always felt comedy is my natural metier,” he said. “I loved Martin and Lewis when I was little, and Morecambe and Wise, Les Dawson and so on. But then it all became about alternative comedy and that’s not my scene.
“But I loved doing this and I’d like to do more physical comedy. Here I am in my 60s finally getting to play a really funny, iconic character like Bob Servant.”
It sounds as if Cox is keen to reprise his role if the BBC commissions another series.
“I would love to do it again,” he said, before turning towards BBC staff with a mischievous grin and adding loudly: “If they pay me more money next time.”
While hailing Neil Forsyth as a gifted comedic writer, he was less impressed with Forsyth’s attempt at acting he has a cameo role as “the second policeman” in the opening episode.
“This should be his first and last flirtation with acting,” he added with a sigh. “He kept going on about his motivation.”
Following Wednesday’s broadcast, Thursday’s Courier contains an exclusive review of the show by its star: Bob Servant.
On hearing this, Cox roared with laughter. “That bloody Neil,” he chuckled. “I bet he completely pans it!”
* Bob Servant Independent is on BBC4 on Wednesday from 10-10.30pm, repeated on BBC2 Scotland on Friday. See Thursday’s Courier for an exclusive review by Bob Servant.