Tartan Telly: A history of BBC Scotland's Hogmanay television
By Anita Fitzsimons
Hogmanay TV extravaganzas exist in the popular imagination as a blend of toe-tapping traditional tunes, impromptu chat, and live public broadcasts from the nation's cities. Televising Hogmanay is a tricky prospect - the show goes out at midnight; the entertainment has to appeal to all ages, from children to the elderly, and the spectre of excessive drinking is never far away when street-parties are involved. And then there's the challenge of the weather...
There have been programmes which reflected on the sorrows of the year gone by and get you fired up for the 52 weeks ahead; shows which have made you laugh and cry, for better or worse. Let's look back at some gems from the BBC archives which offer an insight into how we celebrated the passing of the year.
The kilt, the chair and the lucky white heather
In these days of TV on-demand it's easy to forget that once upon a time, when television was in its infancy, we only had one channel. In the years after the Second World War, Hogmanay was one time of year when nation spoke unto nation. TV schedules from the 1950s abound with 'Eurovision' specials, where 'ten countries join together on New Year's Eve to entertain viewers throughout Europe'.
Some gems of Scottish broadcasting at this time include 'The Kilt is my Delight', which ran from 1956 to 1963. It was the precursor to 'Draw in Your Chair', a Hogmanay favourite of the '50s.
Draw in Your Chair
Roddy McMillan and Alec Brand keep the fire burning with song and chat in Draw in Your Chair, a variety show from 1959. Promotional trail for BBC One Scotland's Hogmanay 2009 programmes. Roddy Hart chats backstage at the rehearsals for BBC One Scotland's Hogmanay Live!
The show featured the actor Roddy McMillan, famous from 'The Vital Spark', entertaining with stories, traditional song, and a pot of tatties on the stove. The show tapped into the family traditions of 'doing a turn' in your front room.
The template for Scottish Hogmanay entertainment was forming - a vision which was eagerly lapped-up around the world. This formula of melancholic and merry traditional songs, and charming appearances from heroes of the light entertainment world, gave the world its appetite for haggis and heather. Or at least an easily-consumed, acceptable type of Caledonian charm.
Duncan Macrae was a popular Scottish actor of the 1950s and his performance of 'Wee Cock Sparra' is fondly recalled. Comic turns and poetic recitations call to mind the entertainment we created for ourselves at home before the telly became literally part of the furniture.
In the late 1950s and 1960s, Hogmanay hoolies were televised as 'The White Heather Club'. Beginning life in 1956, the programme became a staple of the schedules, notching up over a decade of shortbread-tinged greatness and making Andy Stewart an international star.
The White Heather Club
Andy Stewart introduces the lively Hogmanay entertainment show from Glasgow. Promotional trail for BBC One Scotland's Hogmanay 2009 programmes. Roddy McMillan and Alec Brand keep the fire burning with song and chat in Draw in Your Chair, a variety show from 1959.
The first 'New Year Party at the White Heather Club' went out on New Year's Eve 1958, from 2330 to 0005, when transmission would close down for the night. Filmed in Glasgow, the show was eventually broadcast nationwide and some might say it gave the world a skewed view of the Scottish ceilidh.
The dancing was formal, everyone wore kilts, tartan was much in evidence, and 'The White Heather Club' remained a hugely successful variety show between 1957 and 1968. The programme's producer, Iain MacFadyen, was clever in televising elements of the New Year parties going on across Scotland. He was dubbed 'The Ayatollah Hogmanay' due to his power over the seasonal schedules, and was responsible for producing every Hogmanay show from 1968 to 1980.
Varied amusements
Lively variety shows continued to be broadcast into the 1960s and 1970s, with titles such as 'Ring out the Old and Bring in the New', from 31 December 1970, and 'For Auld Lang Syne' from 1975. Scottish musicians and variety stars like Kenneth McKellar, Jimmy Shand and Stanley Baxter kept the nation amused at a time when television was still young and innocent. New Year telly had become a tartan institution. And where there's an institution there has to be the voice of dissent.
Rikki Fulton's Scotch and Wry brought barrels of Scottish humour to the Hogmanay schedules. The sketch show began in 1978 and was broadcast annually, in the run-up to the bells, before the official Hogmanay Show in the 1970s and 1980s.
However, the format of kilts and gentle songs, performed by the cream of the Scottish entertainment world, continued well into the 1980s, with 'Celebration' ushering in the new decade on 31 December 1979.
The Hogmanay Party
Bill McCue sings a lament for New Year’s Eve in 1982’s The Hogmanay Party. Promotional trail for BBC One Scotland's Hogmanay 2009 programmes. Roddy McMillan and Alec Brand keep the fire burning with song and chat in Draw in Your Chair, a variety show from 1959.
1982's The Hogmanay Party illustrates the typical fare one would see on screen live around the bells. Familiar faces included John Grieve, Kenneth McKellar, Mary Sandeman (also known as Aneka, the singer of '80s hit Japanese Girl), Stanley Baxter and Andy Stewart.
New Year Fireworks
Live broadcasting UK-wide of the Hogmanay hoolie from Scotland came to an abrupt end with the notorious show Live into 85. This disastrous outside broadcast from a hotel in Gleneagles bore witness to the many perils of live broadcasting: mischievous behaviour from guests, missed cues and 'corpsing' of lines. It was a shambles and the last network broadcast from Scotland until 1998.
'Hogmanay Live' started in 1991 and continues to the present day, with a blend of music, song, country-wide live broadcasts and fabulous fireworks. The tartan flavour has been toned down, and the show has a more celtic feel. The most significant New Year date in a thousand years was, of course, 1999.
The Hogmanay Show (1999)
Hazel Irvine, Chick Young and Tam Cowan usher in a new millennium from the studio in Glasgow. Promotional trail for BBC One Scotland's Hogmanay 2009 programmes. Roddy McMillan and Alec Brand keep the fire burning with song and chat in Draw in Your Chair, a variety show from 1959.
The tradition of broadcasting comedy to bid farewell to the old year has continued since the days of 'Scotch and Wry'. The dour clergyman Rev I.M.Jolly was a Fulton favourite. When the character was created in 1978, Fulton's intention was to call him the Rev. Bodkin, but he took the advice of a BBC wardrobe assistant and Jolly was born. The Reverend became a Hogmanay institution, and 'Last Call' had its final call in 1999.
The comic mantle was taken up by the gang from Chewin' the Fat in Hogmanay 2000, and Only an Excuse? has continued with the Hogmanay hilarity to the present day.
Taking a light-hearted look at the old year and raising a glass to the new is part of the spirit of Hogmanay, and the TV specials, for better or worse, are part of this tradition and will continue to be so.
