June 2019 - The Diary

We opened the month in Greenock's Beacon Arts with another sell-out show and a wonderful audience gave the cast a rousing reception. Even met a lovely couple up from Manchester to catch the show! Thanks once again to Bryan & Jim from the Benny Statue Fund who were there on another fantastic night & for some of the cast of River City to support the show.

Delighted with the response and feedback this show is generating and thanks to everyone who came along to see the show this month. All the years of hard work to get this play up and running is beginning to pay off and we are already planning a new tour for early next year.

More auditions and then back into Producer mode to take The Benny Lynch Story to the wonderful Dundee Rep followed by the beautiful Dunfermline Alhambra. More standing ovations and packed houses greeted the cast as the show goes from strength to strength and full credit to our superb cast

and crew on a thoroughly professional job pulled together in record quick time, as we only had 2 weeks of rehearsals before opening this new show in Ayr last month. Thanks to Jim Spence for meeting the cast afterwards and for his wonderful support and praise for the show.

And we had some very special guests at the Alhambra (above) as relatives and family of Benny Lynch came to the show in great numbers and audience members brought along some unbelievably precious pieces of memorabilia which we aim to include in an exhibition on our next tour.

We managed to sneak Bryan Turnbull onstage as well to get his photo taken in the old street where he was born before the show! Delighted to receive our first glowing reviews as well as the show rolled into another full-house in Motherwell and a brilliant audience they were too. Thanks to Holly Jack

for the photo above of our lovely cast pre-show. We had a well-earned week off after Motherwell and headed down to Birmingham for an episode of BBC daytime drama DOCTORS. Absolutely loved working on this long-running show with a brilliant cast and crew and delighted to be back working

with the BBC again at The Drama Village. My episode will air in November so will update nearer the time. Huge thanks to my agent Luc Chaudhary and all at Letherbridge for such a warm welcome and another great character to play! Then raced back to Scotland to shoot another 4 scenes on a major

Bollywood feature film, 83 and a very enjoyable experience all round on this one with a great cast and directed by the fabulous Kabir Khan. The film is shooting all summer and due to be released in April 2020. Wee photo from the set below and a joy to have been a part of and a film which will

find a huge audience on it's release. Loved working with the Indian cast & crew on this and glad I could squeeze it in between filming DOCTORS at the same time. Lots of travel this month but all very worthwhile and another offer in for a telly job later in the summer. Then back to Glasgow for

our final week of THE BENNY LYNCH STORY 2019 Tour and another sold out gig at Eastwood Theatre and finally to The Brunton, Musselburgh and another OV! Huge congratulations to our wonderful cast and crew and a huge thank you to all of you who came along to the shows. We will be

bringing the show back in 2020 as the reaction has been huge to this tour and we have yet to bring it home to Glasgow! A jam-packed and quite brilliant month and more to come this summer!

May 2019 - The Diary

Back to Birmingham for a COLOPLAST live gig with a great bunch of actors and then back up the road to begin rehearsals for THE BENNY LYNCH STORY which tours Scotland in May & June. Absolutely delighted to welcome Steven Duffy to the team as Director and Kat Siebert as Stage Manager in what promises to be a real knockout show!

Delighted to be asked onto the ACSOM podcast again this month to chat about the show and you can watch the interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajegT8dofBY A break from rehearsals to fly to sunny Belfast for another COLOPLAST live event with the usual gang (below) and also

caught up with my old CASE HISTORIES co-star Brian McCardie for an hysterical dinner & a terrifying drive around the Antrim countryside! A brilliant and laughter filled couple of days in Northern Ireland and more events booked in for 2020.

The ACSOM podcast interview was released to a great reaction which will hopefully put some more bums on seats on the tour and took a sore one from Kevin Miles in the promo shot below, c/o Into Creative and Stephen Cameron. Huge thanks to the ACSOM guys for their continuing support.

More hilarity this month with a night of drink & laughter & tall tales with John White and Irvine Welsh in Glasgow for another meeting of The Hellfire Club and great catching up with these wonderful chaps once again! Then back to the hard graft of getting the show on the road after 2

brilliant weeks of rehearsals we moved to Ayr Gaiety for Tech Day and opened THE BENNY LYNCH STORY to a packed house on Saturday 18th May 2019 and utterly delighted by the standing ovation we received after a quite magical evening of new theatre. Huge credit to the cast and crew

who worked so hard to bring this all together & to Davie Carswell for funding & writing this entire production. An amazing night was made even more special by the attendance of the Benny Statue Campaign Group with Steph Bradley bringing along Benny's actual watch & we had a lovely photo shoot afterwards. Thank you to all of the Gaiety staff for their kindness & help in this amazing debut performance. And thanks to Laura Boyd and all at STV for covering the show in their new show

WHAT'S ON SCOTLAND which we filmed at Greenock Beacon and was broadcast the week of our opening show. Then it was on to Kilmarnock Palace Theatre for our second show and a welcome return to a venue I've played many times myself. A smaller but appreciative audience as well as

an appearance by legendary boxing hero Dick McTaggart, whom the cast were delighted to meet  after the show! Huge thanks to Bryan Turnbull of the Statue Group who stood in the town centre handing out flyers all afternoon and presented the cast with more lovely gifts! This week my first

appearance in EMMERDALE also aired to a lovely reception and hopefully I will be back in future as it was one of my favourite television jobs yet! Having spent 1995 - 2003 in HIGH ROAD this show felt really familiar and the cast & crew were an incredibly friendly & hard-working bunch.

Then back for more auditions & self-tapes, followed by a 7th appearance in the Celtic XI v Rangers XI in the Fitba Greats match at Kilbirnie Ladeside. A brilliant experience once again and a hard-fought 3-3 draw resulted in penalties...we missed 3 and lost the cup! But again loved every minute of it and great to be sponsored now by our friends at the ACSOM podcast for this season!

Up and down the country this month promoting the Benny Lynch show and auditioning for some exciting projects and my agent IAM is keeping me very busy once again!And met up with novelist Gary Nolan at Cathkin to help his research into his new children's book, photographed below.

It was off to Dunoon next and The Benny Lynch Story played to a brilliant audience at the Queens Hall and great to meet up with local legend Jimmy McQueen and lots of ex-boxers after the show. Thanks to Tony Gill for the photos on this page. A great month and a fab start to the 2019 Tour.

April 2019 - The Diary

The 1st of April saw the release of feature film 90 MINUTES and some favourable reviews for our wee low budget football film and is doing well on all platforms and hopefully will have a bright future! Lots of auditions and self-tapes this month and my agent IAM are keeping me busy.

Delighted to report that I shall be popping up in ITV's long running show EMMERDALE and my debut will be on the 21st of May! Absolutely loved every second of working on this show and driving up and down to Leeds a few times this month. Brilliant cast and crew to work with and a lovely role to play. Hopefully I will return to The Dales at some point in the future!

Back to Scotland and we recorded a new show for STV entitled WHAT'S ON SCOTLAND with Laura Boyd interviewing our cast for the upcoming THE BENNY LYNCH STORY which I am Producing with my company Cathkin Park Limited. Thanks to The Beacon Arts Centre in Greenock for hosting us this month as we gear up for a Scottish tour this summer having completed casting.

Up and down to London for more auditions and a photo shoot for ACSOM and FITBA GREATS at my beloved Cathkin Park in preparation for another Legends match next month and thanks to Stephen Cameron at INTO CREATIVE for the photograph below! Great fun again with the ex-pros Rudi Vata and Bobby Petta and James English, Paul John Dykes and Tommy Sheridan and really looking forward to our next match.

Back to Birmingham again for another COLOPLAST live gig and then back to Glasgow to book  rehearsal rooms and gear up for our debut tour! Lots of tickets already sold so if you want to catch it at one of the 9 venues then please go to thebennylynchstory.co.uk for all tickets details. More press coverage this month for the show and we are delighted the way this is all coming together at last!

A cracking 4 weeks and really looking forward to another busy month to come and hope to see some of you at one of our shows! And huge thanks to the brilliant people at EMMERDALE and to my agent Luc Chaudhary who has kept me busier than ever this year already.

March 2019 - The Diary

Kicked off this month with a voice-over for a beautifully shot & written spoken word film for the VIEW FROM THE TERRACE football programme on the new BBC Scotland channel entitled 'No Ball Games' which aired on the 15th of March 2019 as part of Episode 3. Then back on the road with

another CAPTAIN MORGAN live bar & club tour in Leeds which went down a storm with the student population. A brilliant end to the current contract and will hopefully be back later in the year! Time then for another round of auditions and self-tapes back in Scotland for some cracking screen

projects and booked another Short Film for Summer 2019. More regional press again this month for THE BENNY LYNCH STORY and tickets are selling fast. Check out thebennylynchstory.co.uk for dates. We had another tough football match for the Scotland Writers FC v Cambuslang Royals at Toryglen

on the 10th of March for the Davy Black Testimonial and lost 5-2 in a bruising encounter but a great game and thanks to CRFC for the photo of the two teams above. Back to Glasgow and 3 days of R&D work on Kevin Brannigan's brilliant new television project at The Tron Theatre, followed by

a rehearsed reading in front of an invited audience and had a ball with this talented cast and creatives pictured above. hanks to KB Brannigan for the photo above and for a laughter-filled week and a great script, directed by the brilliant Sarah McCardie. Then another 90 minutes playing for the Geltic XI v Rangers XI in another brilliant Fitba Greats match at Kilwinning Rangers. A tough tough match and

we went down to a youthful Rangers side 7-3! But absolutely loved it and great to team up with newcomers Massimo Donati and Paul Slane along with the ex-pros on both teams and an honour to be a part of this once again, despite the result. Thanks to Kelly Neilson for these photos of another

brilliant day and thanks to everyone who came along to watch and to Craig Beattie, our star striker who claimed another hat-trick. Roll on the next one! Back in the car and straight to London's East End for the Premiere of the feature film 90 MINUTES in which I play Ronnie. Great fun seeing

the Cast & Crew again and the film went down a storm at The Genesis Cinema, Bethnal Green. Here's a selection of photos from the night, which included our Producer Rio Ferdinand, who has a cameo in the film. In London cinemas now and released on download and DVD from the 1st of

April 2019. A great night was had by all, but had to leave after the Q&A to drive to Manchester and another excellent COLOPLAST Live event at the Holiday Inn the following day. Another Herculanean drive north and just in time to catch the screening of Maz Edmond's CONNECT at the CCA in Glasgow as part of Tartan Features 'Beyond Year Zero.' This was my first chance to see the

film and was blown away by it. Beautifully written, shot & edited and stunning performances from the amazing ensemble cast with Kevin Guthrie in a superb performance. The film is doing the Festival circuit and am very proud to have been a part of it. Was still thinking about it days after.

Some more exciting auditions and a blizzard of self-tapes in March and booked some more work for next month. Finally another appearance on the CELTIC AM show with Andrew Milne at Malone's in Glasgow discussing all things Cathkin Park & Celtic in advance of the Old Firm match at Parkhead

and great fun once again, alongside George McCluskey, Jim and John Buckley from The Jimmy Johnstone Academy, Agnes Johnstone, Sean Fallon Jr, Charlie Tully Jr and Joe Brooks. Photos here are courtesy of Jim Simmonette.

February 2019 - The Diary

Another frenetic month of travel for auditions and work and another 2000 miles in the car already in 2019! The LABOUR PARTY commercial aired on the 13th February and here's a wee still below courtesy of Simon Baker. To watch the ad check here NHS Labour Party political broadcast 2019

More meetings for the upcoming BENNY LYNCH tour and more self-tapes for some excellent screen projects and some more voice work booked in as well this month. We shot a series of Trailers for THE BENNY LYNCH STORY in which I am playing Tash Conlin, with David Hayman, Stephen Purdon and Holly Jack and thanks to Davie Carswell for the photo below.

Maz Edmond's excellent debut feature CONNECT in which I play 'entertainer' Stevie Sparkles, opened in the Glasgow Film Festival and received more local press in the East Lothian Courier (below). Hoping for a cinema release with this lovely film and is currently doing the rounds of

of the film festival circuit. Thanks to George Mair we received more national press for our BENNY LYNCH tour in May & June 2019 and tickets are already on sale and you can get all the details on our website here thebennylynchstory.co.uk and delighted to report that this is already selling well!

Then it was back into the familiar 'pirate mode' for a brilliant CAPTAIN MORGAN live gig at The Garage, Glasgow with a brilliant crowd and thanks to the staff for again making it one of our favourite venues to play. Photos here courtesy of Hannah from The Garage Niteclub. Then on to

another CAPTAIN MORGAN Tour of Vodka Wodka, Bacchus and The Cathouse Niteclub in Glasgow with the RPM team which went down a storm and a 5th year of playing the mercurial Sir Henry Morgan for me! Great fun as usual and huge thanks to the whole team of Pirate Crew.

Next up was an appearance on BBC Radio Scotland's brilliant OFF THE BALL show with my Stephen Purdon to talk about our upcoming tour of THE BENNY LYNCH STORY and very grateful to Tam Cowan and Stuart Cosgrove for having us on the show. Photo here courtesy of BBC Scotland. You can listen back to the broadcast here: OFF THE BALL BBC Radio Scotland

Rounded off a busy month with another brilliant charity football match at Camelon FC ground in Falkirk and a fine 5-3 Celtic victory over Rangers in the Fitba Greats match. Huge thanks to all who came along to support and to the ex-pro's and players and Officials who made it such a successful

and fun event and great to get my hands on some silverware at long last. Thanks to Alan Watt for the photos on this page. Already looking forward to the next match in March at Kilwinning!Also this month we received nationwide press coverage for our upcoming tour of thebennylynchstory.co.uk

in the Sunday Mail, Sunday Post, Scottish Mail On Sunday and Scottish Sun and thank you to George Mair for his sterling work on our behalf which has already seen a jump in ticket sales for the Scottish Tour 2019 in May and June. Also managed to notch up another victory this month with the Scotland

Writers FC against Glasgow United in a 4-2 win and thanks to Karen Buckland for the team photo below! Great catching up with my old pal Joe Miller of Celtic Fc this month in the West End and

delighted with my new Celtic Former Players Association official jersey! An interesting wee month that was and a few projects coming up in the next couple of months to look forward to...Onwards!