Live Performance Review: Still Game: Live At The Hydro,  The SSE Hydro, Glasgow, Friday 03.10.2014, 19:30

Still Game is a situation comedy set in the fictional Glasgow burgh of Craiglang. It is a programme I was always fond of, though my fondness has certainly grown over the years. The creative hub of the show, Greg Hemphill ('Victor McDade') & Ford Kiernan ('Jack Jarvis') were previously responsible for Chewing the Fat, which I actively disliked many parts of. I feel this was a large part of why my initial fondness for the programme had space to grow. 

This is a live show that I was not aware of wanting to go until the show was announced. I have already come across someone who thought it was the funniest thing they had seen. Sadly much as I enjoyed it, I cant be as generous as that. 

I think firstly I will start with the negatives. In the row directly behind me I had what was clearly a drunk, possibly inbred family, who for the entirety of the first have of the show were holding their own fairly loud inane conversation; loud enough that I actually missed parts of what were being said on stage. They were ignorant to the degree that when being signaled to please zip-it, they pretended to have no idea what was meant. In the second half their was a gap where the worst offenders previously where; hopefully they were taken out and shot.

I also did wonder how they would stretch what is usually a programme just under 1/2 an hour to a performance which is approx 2 Hours and 10 Minutes approx. Essentially it was a very flimsy outline about ensuring one of the central characters, Jack, could contribute to his daughter retaking her vows in Canada, and engineering a new-super-duper prosthetic leg for the character Winston (Paul Riley). 

What I enjoyed most about it was having the opportunity to see the characters of Isa (Jane McCarry) & Naveed (Sanjeev Kohli) just being those characters. 

I would not in anyway say it was side-splitting and it certainly did not have the same ability as the original programmes to make you hoot with laughter. It was mildly chucklesome throughout. It didn't drag and had some nice surprise aspects. I am glad I went, though would now like them to return to making good episodes for the television, as that is still clearly the format this works best in.

Rating: 06/10.