Ian Pattison

New book by Ian Pattison imagines Scotland's future after Yes vote

Scotland has narrowly voted for independence, the virus is still with us in its endlessly multiplying variants, army trucks trundle through the streets and Chinook helicopters rattle above while the jobless roast rats in the street. It's the near future as imagined in a new dystopian book by Glasgow-based author, Ian Pattison, the creator of the BBC network comedy, Rab C Nesbitt.

Rab C Nesbitt to make comeback with live show

Rab C Nesbitt to make comeback with live show

Willie and Sebastian among winners of The Stage Awards

Andy Gray won for his role in Ian Pattison's Willie and Sebastian at Gilded Balloon.

Govan is beset by universal credit and the bedroom tax. Mary is playing food bank roulette, and it doesn't look like Peaches will be going on the school cruise to Sweden. After forming the Scum Alliance (which vows to spend benefit on highly taxed items) and robbing a building society, Rab and Jamesie remain unfulfilled - until they start taking from the rich and giving to the poor.

You either get on with Rab or you don't, and as usual there's plenty to wince at. Nevertheless, the meticulous detail (the pub called The Punctured Arms, the early-evening magazine programme titled The Wan Show) of Ian Pattison's creation could teach other sitcoms a thing or two about giving back to the audience.

The point of Rab C Nesbitt, as played by Gregor Fisher, is that he doesn't get what his little heart craves; there's nothing down for him, ever. But in a radical departure, the Govan guttersnipe demanded the polis fetch him a double-cuffed silk shirt a la Jason King in Department S and not only did the garment arrive, but it was delivered by the closest and most bouffant approximation of Peter Wyngarde that BBC Scotland could find, having already spent most of the guest-appearance budget on Richard E Grant and John Sessions. Still, Rab wins - hurray!

An icon but more than that, a heid-the-ba' too, Nesbitt was last seen in series form 12 long years ago in the history of our pawky land. A Christmas special in 2008 hinted at a proper return but the time wasn't quite right. Rab is back now because the Tories are back. Once again, creator Ian Pattison has sharpened his pen for jokes about public service cuts and Mary Doll having to pawn her engagement ring, this time with a gloopy topping of "broken Britain" platitudes - and most of them are pretty funny.

In the opener, Grant played the Minister for Work, a posho called Chingford Steel kidnapped by the Nesbitts. This wasn't their intention, but they quickly got the hang of hostage-taking and "Jihad patter". "Is the minister chained to a radiator?" loud-hailered the polis. No, said Mary, and anyway they were white-meter. In return for Steel, could they get a "fanatical new boiler and a fanatical heated towel-rail as well?" Rab proposed an improved No 34 bus service between Govan and Castlemilk as the present one was "gantin'". What a hero, always thinking of others, while dressed in an outrageous blouse in what you'd almost have to call Thatcher Blue, although tragically we didn't actually see him slip it over his string vest.

Rab C Nesbitt interview

Glasgow's most outspoken resident talks TV licenses, tofu and Brad Pitt.

Ian Pattison: I'm nothing like Rab C Nesbitt

The writer claims his string-vested creation won't be out of place on our televisions after a lengthy hiatus.

Rab C Nesbitt, who has been played by Gregor Fisher for the past two decades, has retained much of its grungy, cooncil-hoose ambience - the men wavering between fantasy and uselessness, the women unillusioned and razor-tongued. Some of the sting has been drawn, though: Rab, an unemployed drunk for the past 20 years, is now off the booze, his son off drugs. Scotland, still the place to go for these prompters of illusion and hasteners of death, is striving to be proper but can, in this show, still provide soil for good wit.

It is no disrespect to the show and its star, nor to its writer and creator Ian Pattison, to say it rests on and draws from the comic traditions of Glasgow, a city that saw, in a long postwar glory, the maturing of the talents of Stanley Baxter, Rikki Fulton, Jimmy Logan and the master, Chic Murray - as well as the later blaze that was and is Billy Connolly. They were acid, fantastic and in hateful love with their city and its culture, which they helped create. Fisher recalls them at their best when, in a moment of park bench amorousness towards his inevitably long-suffering wife, Mary Doll, Rab C suggests that they "nick intae the lavvie and gi'e ye a belt up the knickers fur auld times sake ... we cud gae intae the disabled, it's roomier noo we've filled oot a bit". When he waxes romantic about his own past, she reminds him that he had become a "psychotically disabled alcoholic". "Ah'm frae Govan," he snaps back. "It wudda happened onywey."

Rab (Gregor Fisher) returns for his first new series in 10 years, in the superb Scottish sitcom about the lovable, string-vested philosopher of Govan. Not only is Rab off the sauce, his son Gash (now played by Iain Robertson) is recovering from drug addiction in the psychiatric wing of the hospital, having lost his job, wife and home in the credit crunch. Rab fails to stop Gash moving back in with him and Mary Doll (Elaine C Smith), despite his plea that here in hospital he's got "rubber cutlery, dolphin tapes, the whole nine yards". Fisher's inimitable performance and Ian Pattison's impeccable writing have lost none of their shine.

Rab C. Nesbitt talks to the nation

A fictional interview with the Rab C. Nesbitt character.