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The Hunchback of Walker Dam

Lemon Tree Studio – 2004

‘Never short of gags or imagination.’

— P&J

‘Bristles with imagination and originality.. another winner from the Flying Pigs.’

— Evening Express

Pausing briefly to get married (Greg & Susan), move house (John), move to Glasgow (Steve), and, somewhat inconveniently, emigrate to Australia (Oli & Chrissy), the time was right for Flying Pig to return with an all new production.

Replacing Oli was no mean task, but as luck would have it, Moray Barber, experienced performer and long time friend of the Pigs, had returned from his years of exile in deepest darkest Edinburgh, and was quickly recruited.

Returning to the Lemon Tree for what was to be the last time, we made, for the first time, full use of video projection to stage Robbie Shepherd’s attempt to better David Blaine’s feats of endurance, relate the untold story of Jimi Shand’s psychedelic adventures in 60s London, and to allow Oli to continue to play Ronnie in spite of being on the far side of the world. We also saw the return of the Liar after a two year break and the creation of our political heavyweights, the Licensing Board.

Cast
John Hardie
Moray Barber
Craig Pike
Susan Gordon
Steve Rance
Elaine Clark
Greg Gordon
With
Andrew Brebner

Script
Greg Gordon
Andrew Brebner
Lyrics
John Hardie
Andrew Brebner

Directed by
John Hardie
Musical Arrangements
Steve Rance
Craig Pike

Sponsors
Ledingham Chalmers
CMS Cameron MCKenna

 

Previous show: The Madness Of Kingswells – 2002

Next Show: Best Back – 2004

Best Back

HMT at Hilton –  2004

‘The Best of Flying Pigs does everything it says on the packet. If you can beg, borrow or steal a ticket, do so. Your sense of humour depends on it.’

— Evening Express

An invitation to perform at HMT’s temporary venue at Hilton led to Best Back, our second outing of 2004 and our second ‘Best Of’ production.

Opening announcement: “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, this is Flying Pig Productions. Welcome to ‘Best Back’, oor ‘best of’ compilation. So if ye think this is bad, you should’ve seen the dirt we left oot!”

Initial concerns that our fanbase might balk at being asked to again fork out their hard-earned cash to see material which they now seemed to know better than us proved to be ill founded; enough of you wanted the proverbial another chance to see The Mither! Wedding saga, The Buckie Drifters, Ghengis Khanna and The Liar; Mother Theresa to enable us to sell out our first great muckle venue. Even a couple if feet of snow couldn’t deter the diehards, and as we gathered at Greg and Susan’s for the traditional wine and stovies, we were all agreed that the concussion suffered by one of our number inadvertently head-butting an opening car boot while loading props out of the theatre was a small price to pay for another successful show.

Cast
John Hardie
Moray Barber
Craig Pike
Susan Gordon
Steve Rance
Elaine Clark
Greg Gordon
With
Andrew Brebner

Script
Greg Gordon
Andrew Brebner
Lyrics
John Hardie
Andrew Brebner

Directed by
John Hardie
Musical Arrangements
Steve Rance
Craig Pike

What the Papers Said
Aberdeen Evening Express

In just six years, the Flying Pig has travelled from its launch pad at Aberdeen’s Lemon Tree to the stage of Her Majesty’s Theatre, earning itself a good few air miles – and a theatre full of fans – in the process. This latest show reminds us of their journey so far, presenting the eight talented comedy actors who started out in Student Show and now find themselves perfectly at home on the stage of the city’s largest theatre, where it looks as though they might be tempted to stay. As a “Best Of” show, theatregoers will have seen some of the material before, but predictable it certainly is not, as you reacquaint yourself with such classics as Mither and Archie and Davie, and laugh all over again at the hilarious lines you certainly won’t remember from last time. Characters retired a few shows back make a welcome return – The Liar, Oor Faither, Ghengis Khanna and the boys from The Cruel Sea provide some side-splitting moments, while rewritten lyrics for some of the best-known pop songs vary the pace and become classics in themselves. The Best of Flying Pig does everything it says on the packet. If you can beg, borrow or steal a ticket, do so. Your sense of humour depends on it.

Previous show: The Hunchback of Walker Dam – 2004

Next Show: The Seagull Has Landed – 2005


Desperate Fishwives – Radio Scotland- Series 1

Recorded at Aberdeen Arts Centre 2007


‘You made my mum laugh, which is harder than you might think.’

– Kenny McBride

Much to our delight and surprise, someone working at the BBC’s Beechgrove studio in Aberdeen had put the word out to HQ that there was something worth seeing in the frozen North.  So it was that we met with Radio Scotland comedy producer, Margaret-Anne Docherty, who’d journeyed up from Glasgow to see Desperate Fishwives. Happily, she liked what she saw, (particularly the title!) and proposed a series. “Um…Ok.” We decisively replied, and so began the process of sorting out which sketches would work for radio and for a nationwide audience. Then we wrote some new stuff, just to be on the safe side… We recorded the shows at our old stamping ground, the Aberdeen Arts Centre on the 22nd and 23rd of June, and Series 1 was  broadcast by BBC Radio Scotland on Saturdays at 12.00 noon starting on the 1st September.

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Waiting for the green light…

 

 

Episode 1 BBC Radio Scotland 12:05 01/09/2007

Episode 2 BBC Radio Scotland 12:05 08/09/2007

Episode 3 BBC Radio Scotland 12:05 22/09/2007

Episode 4 BBC Radio Scotland 12:05 06/10/2007

 

After the first series aired, we had literally several messages of lukewarm encouragement. However, the one we enjoyed the most came from Jeff Zycinski, the head of BBC Radio Scotland who said, in an interview with the Times, “we have been inundated with requests for a new series of Desperate Fishwives, so we must be doing something right.”

That’ll do for us!

For copyright reasons, we cant post any clips from the radio shows, but  ‘Archie & Davie on The Moosie’ and ‘Up my Close – In Torry’ are up on Youtube, so fill your boots!

There’s more info about all our radio output on the Desperate Fishwives BBC micro-site.

Cast & Production Team

Cast

Written by

Produced by

  • Margaret-Anne Docherty

Production Assistant

  • Shaun MacDonald

Next: Desperate Fishwives Radio Series 2

 

Desperate Fishwives – Radio Scotland- Series 2

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‘Laugh out loud funny’

– Bryan Burnett

All those folk who’d pestered the BBC for more Desperate Fishwives (thanks for that, by the way) got their wish in July 2008 when we recorded six more episodes for BBC Radio Scotland.

There’s also now a wee BBC micro-site all about the radio shows.

The series was broadcast on the following dates:

Episode 1 – 18:10 Friday 25/07/2008

Episode 2 – 18:10 Friday 01/08/2008

Episode 3 – 18:10 Friday 08/08/2008

Episode 4 – 18:10 Friday 15/08/2008

Episode 5 – 18:10 Friday 22/08/2008

Episode 6 – 18:10 Friday 29/08/2008

It was repeated on the national digital network, BBC 7, in the first 6 weeks of 2010.

Five enterprising listeners enjoyed the “Caledonia Bank” sketch so much that they posted it on Youtube, where, in total, it’s had almost half a million hits.

The audioclip has been emailed around the world; (we’ve had reports of it reaching Australia, Alaska and Abu Dhabi) you can check it out here; or here, and also here, here, and here.

Cast & Production Team

Cast

Written by

Produced by

  • Margaret-Anne Docherty

Production Assistant

  • Lauren Mackay

Previous: Desperate Fishwives Radio Series 1

Next: Desperate fishwives Radio Series 3

Desperate Fishwives – Radio Scotland- Series 3

‘Do we have to listen to this?’

– John’s 6 year old niece.

(Fair play to her, it was Christmas day, she had better things to  do)

Would we do a Christmas special? Came the enquiry from high up in the Radio Scotland firmament. In fact, will you do five, and we’ll put them out every day of Christmas week 2009?

Well, why not?

We recorded on a suitably dreich couple of nights in November, and the shows went out at lunchtime on the 21st, 22nd 23rd, 24th and 25th December. The perfect audio accompaniment to the peeling of a big pile of sprouts.

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Cast & Production Team

Cast

Written by

Produced by

  • Margaret-Anne Docherty

Production Assistant

  • Lauren Mackay

Previous: Desperate Fishwives Radio Series 2

Next: Desperate Fishwives Radio Hogmanay Special

Desperate Fishwives – Radio Scotland- Hogmanay Special

The Hogmanay Special is a bit of a badge of honour for Scottish comedians, so we were affa pleased to be asked to produce one for Radio Scotland. Highlights included Robbie Shepherd raking through the archive to find lost tapes of the White Pudding Club, new characters The Bakery Wifies and our own version of Auld Lang Syne.

No prizes for guessing when the show went out; there was also a New Years Day repeat for everyone who was either too busy or too boozy to catchit on Hogmanay.

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Cast & Production Team

Cast

Written by

Produced by

  • Margaret-Anne Docherty

Production Assistant

  • Lauren Mackay

Previous: Desperate Fishwives Radio Series 3

Susan Gordon

 

 

Susan continues to bring her own distinctive Doric brilliance to our productions as well as being a calm and relaxed presence in the Gordon household. Another hard working edumacator, Susan also finds time to produce baking and desserts of the highest quality, to which the ever-expanding waistlines of the Pigs are testament.

An alumnus of Aberdeen’s prestigious Holburn West Junior Music Society, she was one half of a highly successful sister act during the early 1980’s. Their closing number – an impassioned performance of “Let’s all Play at Indians” – would elicit wild applause from a select audience of mum, dad, and upstairs neighbour. Typecast in the role of ‘Narrator’ at Ashley Road Primary, Susan then diversified and took the guise of ‘La Corbie’ in Aberdeen Grammar School’s production of Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off, and has continued the ‘old crone’ theme with subsequent roles. With Flying Pig, however, Susan has broadened her palette and can be sometimes seen playing characters as young as 50.

TV work includes presenting a cheque in a Grampian TV Telethon and an appearance aged 4 in the Union Grove Oddbins during a report by Selina Scott, who subsequently went on to work with both ‘fun-time’ Frank Bough and Prince Charles. Her radio work includes a performance as ‘starstruck fan at the head of the queue for Jason Donovan tickets’ in 1990.

 

Meet the Flying Pigs

 

This is the fine body of men (and women, obviously) who comprise the  Flying Pigs.

Click on the photos for a wee biography of each member of the team.

From Top Left:

Moray Barber,  Elaine Clark, Susan Gordon, Greg Gordon,

John Hardie, Craig Pike, Steven Rance,

Andrew Brebner, Simon Fogiel,