Still Game, series 8 episode 1 review: still lovingly crafted, still full of laughs
In the golden age of the sitcom, some shows were recorded in front of a studio audience and the others had canned laughter superimposed. The former now costs too much and the latter, in which producers decided where the laughs are placed in post-production, has long been thought too tacky. But there is a third way. When Still Game (BBC One) was recording its seventh series two years ago, an audience attended a screening and supplied the laughter track.
There were 200 seats, for which a staggering 100,000 Glaswegians applied. The reason for the show’s popularity is clear. It delivers on the promise of waggish codger comedy, and the pleasure starts with the credits, in which pensioners Jack Jarvis and Victor McDade, played by show creators Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill, age before your eyes.
In the style of Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse’s Old Gits, half the cast are comically thatched with wigs and trowelled in make-up so that they look more gnarled, while their physicality remains sprightly with vigour. I could have sworn that Paul Young, who plays Hugh “Shug” McLaughlin, had been fitted with joke-shop ears to aid gags about his pin-sharp hearing, but apparently they’re for real.
The show’s origins as a stage comedy is also transparent. These actors can sell a punchline, and the script is full of age-appropriate references. In this episode, the first of a new series, it was Marvin Hagler and Hemingway.
The plot was a neatly constructed playlet which riffed on the idea of retirees treating pubs as care homes. They were so stingy that Boabby the Barman (Gavin Mitchell) had to turn his into a gastropub to make ends meet. Meanwhile, the nosy Isa (Jane McCarry), an acquired taste, was itching to find out about her surprise party.
The plot lines merged in a clever move up the blindside, while there were smart sight gags, culminating in a cheering sequence in which the regulars gathered in a room over the pub, sawed a hole in the floor and sent a fishing line down to liberate bottles. This is a sharp-witted, old-school sitcom, but with an original twist.
