David Bowie was a fan of the cult Scottish sketch show Absolutely, and even had videos sent to him when he was on tour.
Jack Docherty, 62, co-wrote and starred in the Channel 4 show, which ran from 1989 to 1993 and included the popular Stoneybridge sketches.
Docherty said he became a huge Bowie fan growing up in Edinburgh in the 1970s and later got the chance to interview his musical hero when he hosted his own chat show on Channel 5 in the 1990s.
Speaking on BBC Scotland series The Big Scottish Book Club, he admitted he thought Bowie was just being kind when he said he was a fan.
He recalled how the pair had later “hung out and shared a packet of cigarettes and chatted”.
But he only discovered Bowie, who died aged 69 in 2016, truly was an Absolutely fan after fellow comic David Baddiel attended his stage show “David Bowie and Me” at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last year.
He said: “Growing up in Edinburgh in the seventies, he [Bowie] brought danger and possibility and colour into a very drab black and white world.
“[Hanging out with him for a couple of hours afterwards], it was amazing because I just kept thinking ‘he’s not leaving’. Maybe he was waiting for his car or maybe he was just so connected to everything and everyone he found it hard to let go wherever he was.
“So we just hung out and shared a packet of cigarettes and chatted.
“He did say when I met him, ‘oh yeah Jack, I’m a big fan’.
“I thought ‘well he’s just being nice’, but David Baddiel came to see my show and he said ‘oh no, he used to get sent comedy videos when he was on tour’ — Mary Whitehouse Experience, our show Absolutely — so he did love British comedy.”
Docherty, now best known as Scot Squad chief Cameron Miekelson, also tells The Big Scottish Book Club how he was studying law at Aberdeen University when he took the opportunity to become a TV star instead.
He and school friends Moray Hunter, Gordon Kennedy and Pete Baikie first performed at the 1980 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, but had intended it to be a one-off, he said.
The group, who were then known as The Bodgers, would all go on to star in Absolutely.
Docherty said: “We thought we’ll just do it once but then we got the bug and producers would come and see us and say ‘do you want to work in television?’
“We suddenly went “well, yeah, ok – I was going to be a lawyer but no”.
“I remember sitting in the library going through a case about the common ownership of tenement drainpipes.
“I just thought, “hang on, I’ll become a wandering minstrel instead” so I stuck with that.”
