Comedy legend Jack Docherty has big plans for beloved character Chief Commissioner Miekelson – and knows which icon he’d love to put him up against.
Jack Docherty returns to the hilarious character Chief Commissioner Cameron Miekelson in a new spin-off sitcom(Image: BBC)
He might have started off life in comedy series Scot Squad as the country’s most accident prone senior cop.
But after breaking out of the police satire with his own spin-off TV series and live tours, comedy legend Jack Docherty has big plans for beloved character Chief Commissioner Miekelson – and knows which icon he’d love to put him up against.
As the second series of The Chief launches on BBC Scotland next week, Docherty admits he’s been dreaming up possible next steps for the hapless officer, including a talk show where he would love to grill Sir Alex Ferguson – who coined the phrase “Squeaky bum time”.
(Image: BBC)
His brilliant character has already done a range of interview specials with Scots political leaders to mark Scottish and UK elections, and he admits he’d like to take it a step further.
The 64-year-old said: “I’ve often thought that he could do an interview show, and we’ve been talking about it actually. That’s the great thing about him, you can just plonk him in anywhere. There could be a Mrs Merton type thing.
“I’d really like him to interview Sir Alex Ferguson, that would be my dream.
“Because he’d want to give Ferguson advice. He’d see them as absolute equals and he wouldn’t understand why he’s not Sir Cameron. It could be the kind of thing where he would go around seeking inspiration from political leaders, managers, sportsmen, leaders of business.
“He would be great interviewing all of those people.”
Edinburgh-born Jack has been one of Scotland’s leading comic performers and writers for more than 40 years, becoming a household name for the era-defining Scots sketch show Absolutely and then starring in his own chat show and presenting work in addition to acting.
But he was thrilled to be discovered by a new audience of fans as the gormless Chief Commissioner Cameron Miekelson in Scot Squad.
The famously improvised sketch-type series was a satire of Police Camera Action type shows, and Docherty loved getting to bring The Chief to life.
Jack’s Chief is a classic Edinburgh policing establishment character, and he admitted that he has encountered more than a few of them growing up in the capital city.
He said: “It’s about 12 or 13 years I’ve been playing him now, but when we were shooting Scot Squad, you’d be done in three or four days.
“So it doesn’t feel like a tremendous amount, but then you do all the spin-offs so it’s been around. I just feel comfortable playing him. I find him easy to improvise.”
Jack Docherty has spent four decades making audiences across the UK laugh(Image: STEVE ULLATHORNE)
The rampant success of Scot Squad and The Chief spin-offs have seen Miekelson enter the public consciousness over the last decade. Jack has performed him live at the Edinburgh Fringe and taken him across the country.
He’s also about to embark on the No Apologies tour which ties in to The Chief launching an autobiography of the same name in the upcoming second series.
Jack said he was thrilled to get back to the stage after a lengthy absence.
He said: “I’ve been doing the festival, and I’m touring it this year, and the response has been great – you’re getting proper laughs from an audience.
“You never stop getting nervous, which is good. I do remember doing the live show for the first time in 2017, standing in the wings just suddenly taking a deep breath – I hadn’t performed live for about 20 years.
“And then I walked out and got that first laugh and then I wondered why I stopped doing this because it’s such fun.”
But no matter how many halls The Chief visits across Scotland, his spiritual home will always be on the telly, and Jack is delighted to be bringing his grumpy alter-ego back for series two.
While the Scot Squad version of The Chief was very much focused on his hapless attempts to communicate with colleagues and the public, the sitcom version brings us much more into his chaotic personal life as he navigates divorce, dating and trying to relate to his eco-activist daughter, played by Eilidh Loan.
While he has worked to bring the Scot Squad audience with him, Jack did want to make the spin-off different from its predecessor.
He explained:“It’s much more scripted.
“Because we’d done that (improvisational style) in Scot Squad, we said, ‘Well, let’s not do that. Let’s make it tight plots. Let’s make it characters interacting. Let’s put a home plot in and a work plot and more conventional sitcom stuff.
“It is a slight risk because you’re thinking, well, Scott Squad is so established, will the audience come with us if it’s slightly different? But thankfully we seem to have brought them with us.”
Jack Docherty returns to the hilarious character Chief Commissioner Cameron Miekelson in a new spin-off sitcom(Image: BBC)
In the new series Jack has promised we’ll see more of Miekelson’s dramas at home and work as the cop struggles to keep up with the pace of modern policing and family politics.
He said: “We want to consolidate what we were doing and just to really nail down the world and try to make both the home life and the office life combine and work. Because that’s the biggest challenge. It’s nice to try and get both of those going.
“It’s about writing for the actors that you know, exploring their strengths and getting stories that people know and like. We want to keep on building the world and getting to know more about the characters.”
As a performer who’s spent his life being reminded of his funniest moments as fans quote lines from Absolutely – he still gets “Stoneybridge” to this day –Jack has been thrilled to see The Chief enjoy such fame and popularity as well.
His greatest hits from Scot Squad, including the apologies gag and the time capsule scene, have become viral video clips shared all over the world – and he’s loved seeing the global feedback.
“The viral thing is so different from where I came from, because you have 80 million views of clips.
“And then the Seattle police are getting in touch going, ‘We think you should be our chief’ and that’s when you know it’s got a life of its own.”
“And when my kids were still at university, their friends would go, ‘Have you seen this funny policeman?’ And my kids would have to go, “Yeah, that’s my dad.”
● Season two of The Chief launches on iPlayer and BBC Scotland channel, Wednesday 21 January, 10pm. The Chief’s No Apologies tour of Scotland kicks off March 22 at the King’s Theatre in Glasgow.