There’s Been A Murder: Taggart comes to Edinburgh Fringe
Glenn Chandler, the creator of Taggart, shares tales from behind the cameras in 40th anniversary show
FORTY years after it first aired, Taggart creator Glenn Chandler is ready to share a wealth of tales from behind the scenes on the world’s longest running crime drama at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Twenty-seven series and 110 episodes on, Edinburgh-born Glenn is now a respected theatre director, playwrite and true crime author but in ‘There’s Been A Murder: An Evening with Taggart Creator Glenn Chandler’ he reveals the origins of Glasgow’s most famous cop and recalls the many Hitchcock-like cameos he himself played in episodes along the way.
Now known as the Godfather of Scottish Noir after producers of a number of Nordic Noir TV dramas revealed Taggart was their inspiration, Glenn is set to reflect on the impact his character, played by the late Mark McManus, has had on the crime genre.
The two events, the first at 2pm followed by a second at 7.30pm on 20 August, will see Glenn return to Loretto School where the Taggart episode Out of Bounds was filmed and in which he made one of a number of Hitchcock-like cameos. This time playing the school chaplain.
Glenn recalls, “I'm looking forward greatly to returning to Loretto School. Loretto School became Borderdown Academy in the Taggart episode Out of Bounds. It was one of my personal favourites.
“I was cast as the school chaplain and I spent all day swanning around in robes with a dog collar. Talk about power dressing. When I took my own photographs of the day to Boots to be processed, the sales assistant addressed me politely as Reverend.”
It was a hard-hitting episode, the show’s creator recalls, “It was the episode in which a sadistic PT master was drowned in the school swimming pool handcuffed to a wheelchair.
“The episode tackled the subject of bullying in a top public school, and we used the whole of John Lennon's Imagine to underscore the entire sequence. Yoko Ono let us use that free of any royalties because she was passionate about the subject.
“We received a letter of criticism, incidentally, from some government official to do with the running of Scottish schools to say that bullying had been stamped out and no longer occurred. We did not believe it and the producer sent a sharp reply to the contrary.”
Out of bounds is just on of the many Taggart investigations Glenn recalls fondly and admits he can’t quite believe the series started some 40 years ago this year.
He says, “I had to pinch himself to really believe this was the 40th anniversary of the birth of Taggart. Though a pilot called Killer, the first story went out in 1983, the idea had been discussed between Robert Love the producer and myself over a year earlier.
“I look back on it with great affection, and surprise that it lasted so long. I have seen it described as 'tartan noir'. The stories were dark, yes, but always shot with humour. It was never, as some people think, a gritty detective series. Taggart was always an old-fashioned whodunit that kept us guessing until the last few minutes. Perhaps that was the reason for its abiding success.”
There’s Been A Murder will also find Glenn talking about his new book, Sydney Fox’s Crime, which will be available on at each performance as well as take part in an audience Q&A session.
THERE’S BEEN A MURDER: An Evening with Taggart Creator Glenn Chandler, Loretto School, Musselburgh, 20 August, 2pm & 7.30pm, £16 (£14), https://bit.ly/3BEBdK8
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