Kevin Brannigan has created a personality, Large Angie, who will probably be up there with Rab C Nesbitt as Scotland’s most well-known working-class character. Simply ask Rab’s creator Ian Pattison.
He’s mentoring Kevin, who was having conversations with BBC Scotland about Large Angie earlier than the Covid pandemic hit.
The channel gave us a taster of what’s to return on their Brief Stuff on-line strand. Magnificence and the Beef – which starred Kevin as Angie and Garry Sweeney as snack van lothario Beef – was uploaded in March and has grow to be one in all its most watched sketches racking up over 500,000 views and counting.
Kevin, 35, from Glasgow ’s Barrowfield, mentioned: “I wish to do for the east finish of Glasgow what Rab C Nesbitt did for Govan.
“I can’t inform you how mind-blowing it's being mentored and inspired by Ian. He’s a legend.
“I do know Angie will probably be up there with the comedy greats.”
Pattison, 71, who created and wrote 10 collection of Rab C Nesbitt, which starred Gregor Fisher, mentioned: “Angie is the genuine comedian voice of east finish Glasgow. In time, that voice may go on to resonate anyplace.”
And whereas the pandemic put manufacturing on maintain and Kevin waits to listen to what’s subsequent, the BBC is equally enthusiastic about Angie’s prospects.
Steven Canny, government producer of Comedy at BBC Scotland, mentioned: “Large Angie is an enormous star doing brilliantly with a large and wide-ranging viewers throughout BBC Scotland social retailers. Angie will probably be taking part in large levels for years to return and I can’t wait to see what chaos she creates on TV and social media as effectively.”
We'll get a brand new style of Glesga’s large darlin’ Large Angie on Thursday with the opening present at Glasgow’s Service provider Metropolis Pageant – Large Angie’s Me, the Polis & the Priest.
Kevin is remarkably calm in regards to the curiosity his character is getting.
However then, he’s been perfecting her for eight years and like all in a single day success story, there’s been loads of fallacious activates the best way.
Large Angie’s debut was on the Edinburgh Pageant Fringe in 2016. Since then, Kevin has put her on stage and gone on-line. Considered one of Kevin’s early supporters, Mari Binnie of Glasgow Life, seeing the TV potential, challenged him to give you 5 new characters.
He wrote Glasgow Discipline, a fictional neighborhood based mostly within the east finish which didn’t function Large Angie. She gave Kevin improvement cash “for being a working class author with no background within the arts”.
He then did a improvement week on the Tron Theatre the place Pattison and Nonetheless Recreation director Michael Hines noticed it – each have been hooked.
Hines wished to show it right into a TV sitcom and Ian wished to assist him with the writing. Kevin mentioned: “Earlier than Ian mentioned anything, he mentioned, ‘I wish to congratulate you in your future Bafta’. Coming from him that gave me goosebumps.”
Pattison helped Kevin flip the 40-page Glasgow Discipline mockmentary into the primary half-hour TV episode. Hines liked it and in November 2019 instructed Kevin he wished to ship it to Jacqueline Sinclair, who produces Two Doorways Down. Earlier than he did, Pattison took Kevin apart and instructed him the Beeb would find it irresistible however would ask the place Large Angie was.
Certain sufficient, Sinclair felt the BBC already had Two Doorways Down and Scot Squad – often called gang reveals as a result of they function a number of characters – however Scotland was lacking an iconic character, like Rab, and wished Large Angie.
Kevin mentioned: “Then the entire world went on maintain. Right here was me with my large dream about to return true and the shutters got here down on TV manufacturing.
“However the BBC have been so encouraging and this 12 months we made Magnificence and the Beef.
“The response to it has been wonderful. It reveals Large Angie is for everyone.”
In the course of the pandemic, Large Angie saved folks laughing across the east finish – in individual and on-line.
However like many households, Covid additionally touched Kevin’s household. On the day Kevin despatched the primary draft of the Large Angie sitcom to Pattison, his Uncle Jimma handed away.
He mentioned: “We're such a detailed household and we have been all at his loss of life mattress. The identical day because the funeral, my grandparents caught Covid. My large cousin Donna and I moved in with them to offer them care.
“We nearly misplaced my gran Anne thrice. She was in intensive look after seven weeks.
“It was the darkest and most troublesome time in my life.”
With no background within the arts however a love of performing since he was a toddler, Kevin created Large Angie totally shaped as a hybrid of himself, his mum, gran and feminine cousins – the working-class girls round him.
Whereas being homosexual within the east finish may have been difficult, Kevin took the negatives head on and would “rise up on a snooker desk and dance” to make folks chortle.
He mentioned: “I’ve all the time been a humorous individual. I bear in mind once I was eight I’d fake to be this character Mary Koussefagg and stand on the dykes and provides my cousins fun.”
His mother and father have been accepting and there was speak of college however when he was 17, his dad was jailed for seven years. However performing nonetheless burned shiny and, after taking over a artistic writing course, he started to do stand-up.
In 2011, he did an hour and a half off the highest of his head on this lady who didn’t have a reputation.
Kevin mentioned: “I’m very near my grandfather. He’s often called Large Archie and my gran is Large Anne and her daughter, my aunt, is Wee Anne. So Angie was an amalgamation of their names. Angie’s full title is Angela Margaret Balls. Margaret is my mum’s title. I’m not watching different folks’s comedy to write down my very own model of it – I’m writing my blood.”
Kevin doesn’t see Large Angie as a Scottish Mrs Brown. Brendan O’Carroll’s character doesn’t have the layers of Angie.
The Scot argued: “She comes totally rounded and from a totally rounded world. Magnificence and the Beef was an amazing peak into what that world may very well be.”
Now, we’ll discover out extra about Angie’s previous in Large Angie’s Me, the Polis & the Priest, co-written by Viv Gee, during which she’s accountable for a sequence of occasions heralding again from her youthful years.
Kevin mentioned: “Large Angie is a big a part of me and has far to go. She’s loveable, robust and has already touched a variety of hearts. Let’s see what’s subsequent.”
Large Angie’s Me, the Polis & the Priest on the Outdated Fruitmarket opens Glasgow’s Service provider Metropolis Pageant on Thursday. The competition runs till July 31. For tickets and data: merchantcityfestival.com
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