There are certain faces that belong to Glasgow the way the Clyde belongs to the city — woven so deeply into its identity that you cannot imagine one without the other. Gregor Fisher's is one of them.
The man who gave us Rab C. Nesbitt, The Baldy Man, and some of the finest comic performances in Scottish television history is heading to the Pavilion Theatre on Renfield Street for two nights this April — and if you have any feeling for Scottish culture at all, you should be there.
An Evening With Gregor Fisher runs on Wednesday 22nd and Thursday 23rd April at 7.30pm. It is, remarkably, the first leg of his first proper UK tour — a format that promises stories, anecdotes, and a few surprises from a career spanning nearly five decades.
A Scottish institution
Fisher, 72, was born in Menstrie, Clackmannanshire, and trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. His early work with Rikki Fulton on Scotch and Wry marked him out as a performer of rare versatility, but it was Naked Video on BBC2 that introduced the character who would define his career.
Rab C. Nesbitt — the string-vested, bandage-headed philosopher of Govan — first appeared as a sketch character before earning his own series in 1988. It ran for ten series and two specials, ending in 2014, and became one of the defining cultural exports of modern Scotland. Johnny Depp himself based his Mad Hatter accent in Alice in Wonderland on Fisher's Glaswegian cadence — which tells you everything about the reach of the performance.
But Fisher is far more than Nesbitt. His CV includes Love Actually (as Bill Nighy's long-suffering manager), The Merchant of Venice, The Baldy Man, The Tales of Para Handy, and the BBC's Oliver Twist. Most recently, he has been winning fresh admirers as Ken Pritchard in BBC Scotland's hit sitcom Only Child, which was renewed for a second series in 2025.
What to expect
The "Evening With" format is a well-established joy: part interview, part storytelling, part career retrospective, with room for audience questions and the kind of unscripted moments that make live theatre irresistible. Fisher will be joined on stage by his friend and colleague Nigel West, and the evening promises — in the show's own words — "plenty of laughs, a few surprises, and a bit of honesty about the daft and wonderful journey."
For Fisher, whose autobiography The Boy from Nowhere (2015) revealed a childhood marked by loss and upheaval, the journey has been anything but daft. It has been extraordinary.
The perfect venue
The Pavilion Theatre, that glorious survivor on Renfield Street, is exactly the right home for this show. It is Glasgow's independent theatre — unsubsidised, proudly its own institution, and fiercely devoted to its identity. If Fisher represents the soul of Scottish comedy, the Pavilion represents the soul of Glasgow theatre. The pairing is perfect.
Tickets are available via Ticketmaster and the Pavilion Theatre box office. An Evening With Gregor Fisher, The Pavilion Theatre Glasgow, 121 Renfield Street, G2 3AX. Wednesday 22nd and Thursday 23rd April, 7.30pm.
