‘If I was in Outlander, I’d be ‘hag-up-a-hillside’ - Elaine C Smith on playing 'real' Glasgow women

Elaine C Smith, whose best-known characters over the decades have included long-suffering Mary Doll in Rab C Nesbitt, gullible Dolly in The Steamie and brutally honest Christine in Two Doors Down, admits it is unlikely we will ever see her po-faced and trussed up in period garb.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not averse to an Outlander or a Downtown Abbey,” she muses. “But I’d be the cook. Or the nurse. There was talk of an Outlander episode at one point, I think, but probably ‘hag-up-a-hillside’ or the like….”

She adds, more seriously: “I play these women because they ARE real. These are roles that resonate. I know women like them, and I want to tell their stories and get their voices out there.

“The best compliment I ever got was years ago, in a shop on Buchanan Street, when a woman recognised me and asked if I was ‘that lassie that played Mary Nesbitt.’

“When I said yes, she grabbed me arm and said, hen, naebody does a Glasgow wummin like you.”

Elaine pauses.

“That was as good as getting an Oscar,” she laughs. “I mean, there is nothing worse, is there, when someone who trying to ‘be’ working class, and they put on this hellish accent…. I find that insulting.

She adds, frowning. “And they can never swear properly, either.”

Talking of swearing, Elaine is back with Arabella Weir, Doon Mackichan, Alex Norton and Jonathan Watson for a special festive episode of sitcom Two Doors Down which will air on December 28.

Elaine’s BAFTA-winning character Christine is the savage-tongued neighbour of Beth and Eric, a mild-mannered suburban couple perpetually frustrated by the antics of their friends.

The new series was scheduled to begin filming earlier this year, but has been postponed until 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“It was joyous to be back together,” says Elaine. “When the series was postponed, we were all really sad so to get the chance to do a one-off festive programme was a bonus. We all felt very lucky, to be honest, just to be working again, to be in the same room, speaking great lines - it was wonderful.”

It is rare, at this time of year, to get the chance to chat to Elaine, as she is usually up to her ears in giant frocks and screaming children at the height of panto season.

“I do miss panto, of course, and it is very, very strange and sad to see all the theatres closed,” she says. “But it has meant more time with my granddaughter, and the chance to do other things, which I have enjoyed.”

Those other things include The Moments That Made…Elaine C Smith, part of a new series profiling the careers of some of Scotland’s most-loved comedy performers. Other stars to feature include Richard Wilson and Jack Docherty.

READ MORE: Govan's heroes to be celebrated in song

It is a funny and insightful look back over the highs and lows of Elaine’s journey from trainee teacher to trailblazing pioneer and undisputed queen of Scottish comedy.

She discusses being ‘totally unprepared’ at her first audition at the RSAMD, her big break on Naked Radio which subsequently transferred to television and became Naked Video, and her starring turns in City Lights with Gerard Kelly and on the west end stage as Susan Boyle, the Scottish housewife-turned-singing-megastar courtesy of Britain’s Got Talent.

Elaine also reveals she missed out on the TV version of The Steamie, the stage play she had made a hit with the help of Katy Murphy, Ida Schuster and Dorothy Paul.

Tony Roper’s story of women in a Glasgow washhouse on Hogmanay struck a chord with audiences.

“The women were funny,” says Elaine on the programme. “And we were allowed to be funny. And then it becomes a TV show and I can’t do it – because I’m eight months pregnant.”

Elaine recommended High Road actress Eileen McCallum as the woman to take over her role as Dolly.

“I’m very pleased I recommended Eileen. It was hard when she got the BAFTA, it was hard to let it go,” says Elaine. “After having been so instrumental in getting it on.”

She adds: “But had I done it, I would not have been able to do the pilot of Rab C Nesbitt.”

The show will air on Wednesday (December 16). Elaine admits, with a groan, it is her ‘idea of hell’ to talk about herself.

“But it was nice, yes, to look back at the highs and lows, the good and the not so good, and think – that’s a career,” she nods. “I always remember something the wonderful blues musician Eric Bibb said to me – he’d come on to my chat show, and I’d asked him why he wasn’t a massive star, because he was so talented.”

She adds: “He laughed and said had been offered the big contract, and the fame and fortune, but he wasn’t interested. ‘Two words – Tracey Chapman,’ he said to me. ‘I’m not interested in one hit album, I want a career.

READ MORE: The Glasgow bookie who took on the bank in sensational 60s legal case

“It was a real lesson to me. Yes, maybe when you are young you want the overnight success and the instant stardom but now, at 62, I understand that all of it mattered.

“They say you learn more from your mistakes than you do from your victories, and that is very true”

Elaine says she learned most about herself when she did her eponymous, short-lived TV show.

“I know I over-reached myself with that show, and it was hard to take when it was over and I knew it hadn’t worked the way I’d wanted it to,” she says, adding with a laugh: “I think I wanted to create a Seinfeld for Scottish television, and no one was ready for that. I realise now how risky it was – and how brave I was even to try it.”