Twenty five years after Mark McManus walked onto our screens as hard-boiled Glaswegian detective Jim Taggart, this documentary celebrates British TV's longest continually running police drama.
Taggart: 25 Years of Murder follows the story of how Taggart was first created in a meeting between commissioner Robert Love and writer Glenn Chandler in the unlikely surroundings of Covent Garden.
From this London location, and created at a time when there was no regular crime series on TV, Taggart went on to attract 18 million viewers at its peak and was sold in 80 countries. Britain's favourite, gritty cop even had his own catchphrase: "There's been a murrrrder."
On-set footage shows how a huge, dedicated production team turns the twisting narratives into dramatic television, how the make-up departments have produced gory corpses down the years, and how the current cast have carried on after original Taggart, Mark McManus (pictured, with original sidekick Neil Duncan as DS Livingstone) died in 1994.
Along with behind-the-scenes footage, celebrities such as Lorraine Kelly, Kirsty Wark and Bill Paterson explore the nature of Taggart's popularity.
The documentary also shows how the series has acted as a springboard for some of the country's best acting talent. John Hannah, Robert Carlyle, Dougray Scott, Ashley Jensen and Alan Cumming all got their big breaks on the show. Gail Porter and Jenni Falconer also reveal how being runners and extras on the show gave them their first taste of show-business.
Twenty-five years on, Taggart remains a hugely popular drama. What will the future hold for the detective team, currently led by Alex Norton as DCI Matt Burke?
Did you know? There were suggestions that Mark McManus was the brother of the late Sweet vocalist Brian Connolly. This is incorrect. Connolly's foster father Jim McManus was Mark McManus's uncle. Therefore Connolly and Mark McManus were not directly related, although they could be described as (foster) cousins. The confusion stems from the fact that Jim McManus also had a son called Mark, who grew up with Connolly.
Add a comment