''Tutti Frutti'' is a

BBC Scotland BBC Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: ''BBC Alba'') is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Scotland. It is one of the four BBC national regions, together with the BBC English Regions, BBC Cymru Wales and BBC Northern Irela ...

six-part drama series, transmitted in 1987 and written by John Byrne. It starred Robbie Coltrane,

Emma Thompson Dame Emma Thompson (born 15 April 1959) is a British actress. Regarded as one of the best actresses of her generation, she has received numerous accolades throughout her four-decade-long career, including two Academy Awards, two British A ...

, Maurice Roëves, Richard Wilson and

Katy Murphy Katy Murphy (born 8 December 1962) is a Scottish actress and teacher who has appeared in many television programs, most of them for the BBC and ITV. While most associated with television drama, she has worked across a variety of genres, includin ...

. It won six BAFTAs and brought many of the cast to national prominence.

Plot

The Majestics, a legendary Scots

rock 'n' roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm an ...

band, are on the eve of their 1986 "Silver Jubilee" tour, and find themselves in trouble when their lead singer, Big Jazza McGlone (Coltrane), is killed in a car crash. The group's devious and exploitative manager Eddie Clockerty (Wilson) talks Big Jazza's younger brother, Danny (also Coltrane), home from New York for the funeral, into joining the band as their new lead singer. Suzi Kettles (Thompson), a sharp cookie and old classmate of Danny, picks up the guitar and also joins the band. From that moment, the ill-fated tour and the band's fortunes appear to take a turn for the better. The Majestics' final dispiriting tour of Scotland's less salubrious clubs and pubs is punctuated by childish backstage squabbling and a series of personal disasters. Ageing heart-throb Vincent Diver (Roëves), 'the iron man of Scottish Rock', is cheating on his wife Noreen (a community nurse and sister of drummer Bomba) with girlfriend Glenna (played by Fiona Chalmers as simultaneously pathetic, manipulative and glutinously cloying), who has an apparent pregnancy and when the unborn child dies (or maybe never existed from the start), she commits suicide by jumping from a bridge into the Clyde. Vincent is also knifed in

Buckie Buckie ( gd, Bucaidh) is a burgh town (defined as such in 1888) on the Moray Firth coast of Scotland. Historically in Banffshire, Buckie was the largest town in the county until the administrative area was abolished in 1975. The town is the t ...

by a girl who believes she is his illegitimate daughter from a one-night stand on a tour of long ago. Suzi Kettles proves to have an abusive estranged husband, a dentist, in whose teeth Danny drills holes with the dentist's drill for his battering of Suzi. The fractious on-off relationship between rotund Danny McGlone and Suzi adds a further comic dimension, along with the 'double-act' of the dour Mr Clockerty and his lippy secretary Janice Toner (Murphy). In the final sequence, during the Majestics' grand final concert at Glasgow Pavilion, Vincent douses himself in Polish vodka and sets himself alight.

Re-release

Although it attained 'cult' status, it was only repeated once on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream a ...

, albeit only 10 months after its first transmission on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

, and was not available on video or DVD. Various rumours circulated for many years as to why, but the BBC never confirmed the reasons. However, in March 2007 John Byrne explained that the problem had been due to a performance of the song "Tutti Frutti" in one episode (not the title sequence) where Danny McGlone changes the lyrics to "here's the rub, she makes me sleep in a tub". This is a reference to an earlier scene where Kettles is coerced into letting McGlone stay at her flat, but insists he sleeps in the bathtub. As a result of this change the BBC's usual music licensing did not apply, and the copyright holder

Little Richard Richard Wayne Penniman (December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020), known professionally as Little Richard, was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was an influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades. Described as the " ...

requested a prohibitively high fee. In 2006 a BBC spokesperson stated that these issues were 'resolvable', allowing for a DVD release or

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

transmission. John Byrne said he thought the original film stock (including out-takes) may have been destroyed, and that only the broadcast masters may survive. The BBC released a two-disc Region 2 DVD package of the series on 3 August 2009 in the UK. In March 2019, the new BBC Scotland digital channel re-broadcast the six original episodes - directly after a documentary about the making of both the series and the stage play, called ''Tutti Frutti: The Return of The Majestics''.

Stage play

In 2006 Byrne reworked the series into a stage play, produced as a co-production between the

National Theatre of Scotland The National Theatre of Scotland, established in 2006, is the national theatre company of Scotland. The company has no theatre building of its own; instead it tours work to theatres, village halls, schools and site-specific locations, both at h ...

and His Majesty's Theatre in

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), a ...

, where it opened on 22 September 2006. In 2007 the show toured to the

King's Theatre, Glasgow The King's Theatre is located in Glasgow, Scotland. It was built for Howard & Wyndham Ltd under its chairman Baillie Michael Simons as a sister theatre of their Theatre Royal in the city and was designed by Frank Matcham, opening in 1904. ...

, the

King's Theatre, Edinburgh The King's Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. History of the theatre The King's became famous for being a venue belonging to the theatre empire Howard & Wyndham. The theatre was originally commissioned by the Edinburgh Building Comp ...

and the

Grand Theatre, Blackpool Blackpool Grand Theatre is a theatre in Blackpool, Lancashire, England. Since 2006, it has also been known as the National Theatre of Variety. It is a Grade II* Listed Building. History The Grand was designed by Victorian theatre architect Fr ...

Cast

* Robbie Coltrane as Danny McGlone / Big Jazza *

as Suzi Kettles * Richard Wilson as Eddie Clockerty *

as Janice Toner * Maurice Roëves as Vincent Diver * Stuart McGugan as Bomba MacAteer * Jake D'Arcy as Francis 'Fud' O'Donnell * Ron Donachie as Dennis Sproul * Fiona Chalmers as Glenna McFadden

Episodes

Awards

The series won six BAFTAs in 1988. * Best Actress – Emma Thompson * Best Drama Series – Andy Park, Tony Smith * Best Graphics – Sandi Anderson, John Byrne * Best Make Up – Lorna Blair * Best Sound Supervisor – Brian Dewar * Best VTR Editor – Peter Hayes

References

External links

* *
''Tutti Frutti'' review on Screenonline
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tutti Frutti (1987 Tv Series) 1987 in Scotland BBC Scotland television shows BAFTA winners (television series) BBC comedy-drama television shows Scottish television comedy 1987 Scottish television series debuts 1987 Scottish television series endings 1980s Scottish television series Television shows set in Scotland 1980s British comedy-drama television series 1980s British television miniseries