BOABBY the Barman may be no more but Still Game’s Gavin Mitchell is still numb.

He said: “It’s not sunk in if I’m honest. We finished a few weeks ago and then I got the lurgy.” 

I met the lovely Gav at the 35th anniversary celebrations for STV’s famed detective series Taggart. 

Seamore Neighbourhood Cinema had taken over Maryhill Community Central Hall for the occasion and Gav was in esteemed company alongside show creators – writer Glenn Chandler and producer Robert Love. 

Gav told me: “I actually appeared three times, in three roles on the show, as a barman of course and then a pathologist Robin Carlisle Forbes who was actually kind of posh, and then as a gangster kind of businessman which was a brilliant storyline. 

He added jokingly: “He was nice but a bit like me, so er, don’t cross me or I’ll break your nose with a pool cue.”

As we sat watching the first ever episode of Taggart – then a three-part mini series called Killer in 1983 – it struck me just how brilliant it was, and how timeless the writing still is. Only the dodgy-patterned wallpaper was a bit out-of-date. 

Gav said: “Robert and Glenn both created Taggart, so to be with the creators 35 years on in Maryhill in the community Central Hall is phenomenal. To be in Jim Taggart’s stomping ground, in his hood with his creators is refined company indeed. It’s a bit like being with Keith Richards and Mick Jagger – and I’m the Ronnie Wood of the company. I’ll always be the newbie.”

Under interrogation 

TAGGART writer Glenn Chandler reckons there’s a magic in live theatre you don’t get from telly. 

Glenn who marked the 35th anniversary of his character with a special Q and A and screening said: “Putting a little play on and getting people to come and see it, there’s a magic and intimacy about it that you don’t get from television.”

He’s just about to launch his brand new play in London called: “The Boy Under The Christmas Tree” which he describes as a very LGBT play. 

He said: “It’s about a guy who wakes up on Christmas morning and everything has gone wrong for him in his life and he wakes up and there’s an almost naked young man under his Christmas tree. Nobody knows where he came from...” 

DCI Taggart would definitely be able to find the answer to that.