Back in Glasgow, the bone-dry Clockerty and his workshy secretary Miss Toner (Katy Murphy) snipe at each other in drippingly acidic exchanges that, for me at least, are the show's highlight. The series follows the band as they play in insalubrious pubs and clubs in one depressing Scottish town after another, and Danny bumps into old flame Suzi Kettles (Thompson), who later joins them on tour. They have a silver jubilee tour booked and a TV documentary planned, so manager Eddie Clockerty (Wilson) hires McGlone's lookalike younger brother Danny (Coltrane) to fill his place. Tutti Frutti, which launched the TV careers of Emma Thompson, Robbie Coltrane and Richard Wilson, is a glorious, irreverent and scabrously funny story about the Majestics, a covers band who have just lost their lead singer, Big Jazza McGlone, in a kebab-related road accident. But Byrne also told me the BBC knew he intended the drama (in six hour-long episodes) to be a one-off: 'I left the characters at a point in their lives where all sorts of things could have happened, but I didn't want to drive the thing into the ground.'
