October 2023 - The Diary

A really busy month and managed to pack a lot in! Back to the Woolfson for more excellent GU MED SCHOOL roleplay work with a great group of actor pals before heading back down to North London to shoot another excellent Bollywood Feature Film. The film, entitled BHAI BHAI stars Maniesh Paul

and is Directed by Dhwani Gautam and was a brilliant experience, shot in an excellent former police station and with a great script. Had a blast on this feature and met up with the cast back in Glasgow

as they had further scenes to shoot in Scotland. Huge thanks to Anushree and all the team for casting me in my 5th big Bollywood film and this was a great character to get my teeth into. Then it was into the car for the long drive home and another excellent roleplay with The Wheatley Group followed by a return to 

Glasgow University for further roleplay work. Our fashion store at The Barras is doing really well too and we had a fab Fashion Show at a private event in the West End which was great fun to host and thank you

to our models and to everyone who came along and helped turn it into a real success, pictured below.

Booked another film role for December, more of which to come and then it was back into costume as another police character this month, the return of Officer Muir in Episode 3 of the Amazon Prime series

A TRUE MISMATCH. Brilliant to be back with this team and a really good few days shooting this in fab locations such as Stirling Old Town Jail and a return to New Lanark. Shot some epic scenes in this one and can't wait to see the results when it is screened later in 2024. Great to be reunited with Matthew

Crawford, pictured with me above, who was our Costume Designer on ONE NIGHT IN FLANDERS a few years ago. More auditions, more corporate work and the shop, Zico Fashion Boutique made it a manic end to October, but delighted to announce that I have signed on to play a lead role in this beauty below!

Next month is looking busy once again and very much looking forward to playing another mad, bad and dangerous to know character and to working with old friends once again. Stay tuned...

September 2023 - The Diary

In September it was back to London for another excellent roleplay with COLOPLAST UK in Islington and great fun working with the usual team and joined by Glen Dickson for these sessions, pictured below

before heading back to Glasgow and meeting up with former Celtic & Partick Thistle FC goalkeeper Andy Murdoch for lunch and drinks and a great catch up, having previously worked together with Police Scotland, in which I did the roleplay work. A great evening ensued and met fellow ex-pro's Paul Paton and Paul Ross at The Horseshoe Bar, also all pictured below! Back to the screen work and this month saw a

repeat broadcast of the brilliant CASE HISTORIES series starring Jason Isaacs on the UKTV Play channel. I played a hit man, Paul Bradley and loved working on this show alongside a stellar cast

in a great role, taken from the novels by Kate Atkinson, a still from which is above, alongside Adam Godley of Breaking Bad fame. Back to Glasgow Caledonian University for the first time since I quit

Photo above with Blythe Duff and Clare Waugh at the TAGGART Exhibition in Sept 23 in Caley Uni.

my Degree course in Social Sciences to pursue my acting career and the fab exhibition and celebration of all things TAGGART. Organized by Blythe Duff, this was an honour to be a part of and I freely gave my own 'witness statement' of my involvement in this flagship show from STV to the retired Detectives present and it brought back some brilliant memories. Great to bump into Laura Harvey, who had photos

of the WRAP Night party from 1999/2000 when we shot the episode entitled FALLING IN LOVE in which I played Billy 'Skud" Mackay. This photo is above! Great catching up with lots of old friends at this event and doing the interview for the documentary film that will accompany the exhibition in future.

Then time for another grand meeting of The Hellfire Club and anothe fun-filled night at Sarti's Glasgow, followed by a raucous night watching the Scotland game in the Horseshoe Bar once again. Great fun indeed. The following Monday it was back to Parkhead and a really fun interview with Paul Dykes

for A Celtic State Of Mind's A WANDER ROUND PARADISE series, which you can watch here:

A WANDER ROUND PARADISE and great fun chatting about Celtic FC and our new fashion store

Zico Fashion Boutique and huge thanks for having me back on the platform. Always great fun!

Also this month I helped organize a shoot in Glasgow for a funding reel short film by Jason Allday entitled RUN. The majority of the shoot was in New York and features cast members from The Sopranos and Goodfellas and is Directed by Danny Provenzano. Thanks to David Wilde for shooting these scenes

above and below and to our cast of Scott Peden, Douglas Sannachan and Peter McPherson and to Tom Joyce at The Barrowland Ballroom for permission to shoot another scene there. Great fun again and

another nice project for the future. Here's the cast and crew below under the iconic Barras Market sign!

Time to squeeze in a couple of medical roleplays with Glasgow University before the end of the month at the Woolfson Building and another slew of exciting auditions from my agent. Booked another feature film role but more of that in the weeks to come!

August 2023 - The Diary

 As with last month, we kicked off August with more roleplay gigs with the Medical School at Glasgow University and with NHS Lanarkshire and again throughout the month and really enjoyed the various different scenarios and the research one has to do beforehand to give convincing case studies for students.

This month saw the repeat on Sky Arts of the brilliant PATRICK MELROSE, featuring an amazing performance from Benedict Cumberbatch and again, a delight to work with on this epic series, directed by the fab Edward Berger of All Quiet On The Western Front fame. I played Angus Broglie in this fab series

which was a real career highlight to work on. Again August was full of more auditions for more superb shows and another two Bollywood film offers for later in the year from Producers I have previously worked for, which is always a good sign that you did a decent job previously! 

Next up was a great night out at the opening of Sam's Bar at The Barrowlands Ballroom, pictured above with my fellow traders and old pal Gavin Mitchell. A great night and delighted to be asked along. The following day it was back to Edinburgh for the EIFF screening of the brilliant CHOOSE IRVINE WELSH

documentary in which I was interviewed and which went down really well with the audience and much hilarity followed with a great after party at The Little White Pig and great fun catching up with friends

old and new and to celebrate the career of this generation's greatest writer. A brilliant night and huge congratulations to Jack Pepper Media for making a superb and fascinating documentary film, which

will be out later this year on Netflix. Thanks so much to Director Ian Jeffries and Producers Jason Allday and Brian Anderson for a fab night and to Lisa Moorish, Zoe Devlin Love, Kirsty Allison, Gavin Mitchell, Gail Porter and Emma Welsh for such fun company and to all who came along. Superb fun.

Finished off the month with more roleplay bookings and more auditions and lots to look forward to in the next few months, with jobs booked in all over the country and another pile of scripts on my desk to read!

July 2023 - The Diary

Into the second half of the year now and back to Glasgow University for more roleplay work with the GU Medical School, followed by another series of NHS Lanarkshire roleplay work. July also saw the release of series 1 of Irvine Welsh's CRIME, starring Dougray Scott in his Emmy-winning lead role. The show was finally aired on STV/ITV this month and I was featured in Episode 4 as Miles. Great to see the show

finally on terrestrial television and gaining a whole new audience. Delighted to have been a part of it and there is a second series now in the can. Back to more auditions and self-tapes this month for some excellent productions and thanks to IAM for presenting me with so many opportunities so far this year.

Back to Glasgow and more roleplay work and rehearsals for two separate films we are shooting this summer, before heading back to my old stomping ground of Luss, Loch Lomond to shoot an excellent arthouse film with the brilliant Robert Firth and my old pal Mark Barrett on THE ORIGINAL NIGHT.

This was a fun shoot on Inchconnachan Island, famous for it's population of Wallabies and I play an Animal Handler in this film, directed by Artist Alasdair Asmussen Doyle with a fab international crew and a great story. 

We shot on film, not having worked in the analogue form since the 90's it added an extra special dimension to the shoot and certainly the lack of huge amounts of film certainly concentrated the action!

Stunning locations and lots of laughs on this one and great fun working with these guys and for me to be back in Luss, where I spent 8 years shooting TAKE THE HIGH ROAD was a joy and brought back a lot

of very happy memories.  Really enjoyed working with Mark and Rob, and his tales of Hollywood and his long career was a delight. A brilliant gig this one and great to be back filming in Scotland again. Topped off a good month with another feature film offer, more of which to come next time!

June 2023 - The Diary

As I mentioned at the end of last month's entry, June is a mad busy month, with travel all over the United Kingdom, another raft of roleplays and auditions and thankfully arrested the slide by booking some more feature film work for later in the year. Started off this month in London, shooting a brilliant Sci-Fi short

entitled TRACE, Directed by Jack Murphy and just a joy to work on. Really talented young crew on this one, super-focused and grafters on a tough 5-day shoot, including a night shoot on Day 5. We filmed this one in various studios and locations around London, from Bromley to Walthamstow, firstly at the fab

Perivale Studios, next to the old ground where I used to play football for Crystal Zoo FC many moons ago! Delighted to be playing the lead role of Daniel in this Dystopian thriller with a great cast and did some really lovely work on this one. Great to be back in London on a movie and with great people.

Again, one of the friendliest crews I've ever worked alongside and was a pleasure to do this job. We then moved on to Shutterstock Studios, an excellent and atmospheric location for lots of this film's interior scenes and spent three days here, some of the BTS photos are here, courtesy of TRACE Films.

Fight scenes and weapons, body armour, special effects and brilliant Make-Up from Becca Lymbourides completed a superb final day's shoot in East London and managed to squeeze in another roleplay job on Teams with NHS Lanarkshire from my hotel room, before driving back into Whitechapel to buy more

stock for the shop and catch up with my old friend Andy Stanson in a cafe nearby! One of the best Voice Over artists in the country and an old pal from A1 Vox days, we have been friends for years and always a right laugh catching up with him, see below. Delightful company before a long arduous night shoot of 

fights and finally wrapped at 4.39am and straight back into the car and drove to Glasgow to open Zico's the next morning! In something of a whirlwind I then received a booking the following day to shoot another excellent Bollywood Feature Film, but meant another drive South, to Birmingham for a 9AM

call time at this stunning location!No rest for the wicked, so it was an all-night drive after closing the shop and then straight in to make-up and costume in 30 degree heat for a long but fantastic day's work. Got on

great with the Director, Dharmesh Mehta and he taught me some Gujarati to incorporate into my script!

I play the Mayor Of London in the movie, entitled MOM TANE NAI SAMJAY and stars Hemang Dave, Hardil Sangani and Bhavya Ganghi and was great fun to work on. We shot a huge scene to open the film, with hundreds of Extras and a huge Civic Reception scene to shoot with three cameras rolling at once

and a huge and welcoming crew. Loved working with the brilliant Malika Johra, pictured above in this huge scene, which we shot all day, eventually wrapping after more Drone shots at 9pm! Huge thanks to the cast and crew and especially to Anushree at AIJ Productions for another fabulous experience. This

was my 4th Bollywood epic and the 80th film I have worked on! Just great fun and am really enjoying the sheer diversity of work I am doing these last few years. Drove back to Scotland for more auditions and roleplay gigs and then to Zico's where another actor pal, Outlander's Scott Kyle popped by. Then to a

sunny Manchester for another fun Coloplast UK roleplay with the old gang and mad to be in town on

the night of Manchester City's parade having won the European Cup. Back to Glasgow for a quick stop before heading back down to The Borders for more Wheatley roleplay work and had great sessions on our mini tour of Stranraer and Dumfries. A mental busy month, but great fun and good solid graft done in June

and rounded off with the fun trip south with Ewan Hunter and Sarah Duncan, pictured above. Booked a couple of gigs for July and started prep on my 5th film of the year, with rehearsals booked and another trip back to Bristol to come!

May 2023 - The Diary

May began with an interview with the lovely Patrick Stafford, who is writing a book about one of my previous television shows and met up with him in Little Italy for a great chat. The book will be out next year and more of that to come. Here we are post-chat pictured below! And as it was also my 50th birthday

that day, met up with my family for a lovely meal at the famous Ashoka West End in Ashton Lane!

Then into more excellent roleplay work with Glasgow University once again in both training and exam

situations with a great bunch of actors and now have lots more booked in for the next 8 weeks. Long days but really enjoyable work and good fun catching up with lots of old actor friends in Glasgow (below).

Then it was off to the Glasgow Detal School for more roleplay work with their final year exams and back to our wee shop at The Barras at weekends, which is going really well. Delighted to have former Celtic player and podcaster Si Ferry in this month and great chat, having played in the Old Firm Greats together

a couple of years ago, pictured above. More roleplay work with NHS Lanarkshire this month and Advo Health, followed by a voice over for old pal Douglas Sannachan's new short film RHINOMAN,which

is currently in pre-production. Back to Zico Fashion Boutique and a surprise visit from a documentary film crew who asked me and fellow Trader Eddie to do some pieces to camera for The Wu Tang Clan, in advance of their concert in Glasgow's Ovo Hydro later this summer! One of my favourite bands from

the 1990s and delighted to be a part of the film which will play behind the band on the screens on the day! More self-tapes this month, a few near misses and a couple of film offers now in for June. Rounded off the month with another series of roleplays with the Wheatley Group with a great team, pictured below. Been a

good month work-wise and auditions-wise and roll on June, which is looking really busy already!