Gaby Soutar: Iconic Scottish series Taggart was always a bit dour, like most Eighties television shows

Aerial view of the city of Glasgow, Scotland Pic: Claudio Divizia

Published 27th Aug 2023, 04:55 BST

The institution invites those who were involved in shoots, worked as extras or in production, to visit and reveal all across three days of drop-in sessions at the university’s Archive Centre, from September 6 to 8.

Best of all, Taggart actor Dr Blythe Duff (aka DCI Jackie Reid), who has donated her scripts from 95 episodes, and a team of retired detectives will be holding interviews in a faux police station.

There will also be paraphernalia on display in an “incident room”, to complete the role-playing day out.

If only I could help with their investigation.

I have been an extra before, but that was in the late Nineties, as a Bosnian prostitute in The Hanging Garden episode of Rebus. I also auditioned for the body double for a freshly dredged corpse in the 2003 film Young Adam, though they employed someone else in the end. They probably had more acting range.

I don’t think they’d accept those little nuggets down at the fake Taggart HQ.

Just as well, I'd probably get Stockholm Syndrome and insist that they send me down.

All I can offer them is that I’m like everyone in Scotland of a certain age, who has the phrase, “There’s been a murder”, embedded into their psyche.

Mind you, along with “For mash get Smash” and “Oooh, Betty”, I’ve stopped using it around young people. It's been 13 years since Taggart ended, and the youth don’t have a clue what I’m talking about.

Unfortunately, I will be of no use at the open days.

Fair enough, as I always dodged the series, when it first came on TV, back in the mid Eighties. It was too gritty, for a kid.

Forget tartan noir, this was more like tartan gris, but that was the appeal.

Unlike this month’s UCI World Championships,