Dennis
Lawson, uncle of Ewan MacGregor, is to take on the role
of Jewish Detective Inspector Morris Rose in a new drama
the BBC hopes will top Taggart and Inspector Rebus in
the struggle for ratings against Scottish Television.
It is the first ever drama series to be set among Glasgow’s
vibrant Jewish community.
The new show is BBC Scotland’s first detective series
and Lawson will make his first appearance as the Jewish-Glaswegian
copper with the shady past and an absolute passion for
bagels, in The Fabulous Bagel Boys, a feature-length
pilot, to be screened this summer.
Rose is a quiet suburban cop who loves his family-run
delicatessen on Glasgow’s leafy south side, who appreciates
the calmness and security of middle-class life, a word
away from the driven-by-the-job ‘tecs of Taggart
or Ian Rankine’s dark and troubled Inspector Rebus.
Not troubled by the urban jungle and keeping as far away
from it as possible, Rose peers behind the velvet curtains
to discovers dark deeds among the relatively well-heeled
well-contented inhabitants of "middle Scotland".
Rose too has a dark past shadowing him. A former trainee
Rabbi, he abandoned his religious calling and fled to
New York to escape a troubled relationship.
The series opener, The Fabulous Bagel Boys, is
designed to have the same mass appeal as Taggart and Rebus,
but the action is spiced with gentle humour. Rose is an
idiosyncratic figure, like the Rebus and Taggart characters,
but his Jewishness is only part of a complex personality.
The BBC has described DI Rose as having a "trained
analytical mind".
When the show becomes a series it will create its own
piece of Scottish media history as the first regular television
drama to be developed and produced by an independent producer,
Skyline Films. Skyline also created Hamish MacBeth,
which starred Robert Carlyle.
The Fabulous Bagel Boys also stars Michael French,
Alex Norton and Zoe Eeless. Norton plays Lionel, Rose’s
brother, who runs the family delicatessen. Eeless plays
his daughter Rachel.
The feature length opener has Rose investigating the murder
of a local car dealer’s daughter, but is also troubled
by a food inspector threatening to remove the deli’s
kosher licence.
Scottish Televison has welcomed its new rival. An STV
spokesman says, "We welcome any production to Scotland
which adds to the amount of television being produced
in the country and adds to the profile of Scotland in
the rest of the UK."
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Dennis
Lawson, uncle of Ewan MacGregor, is to take on the role
of Jewish Detective Inspector Morris Rose in a new drama
the BBC hopes will top Taggart and Inspector Rebus in
the struggle for ratings against Scottish Television.