Died: August 5, 2024
Ron Bain, who has died aged 79, was an actor and a theatre and television director. But more importantly he was an almost unique person in showbusiness in that he was universally loved.
Taggart star Alex Norton recalls a tale which highlights his friend Ron Bain’s character. “I’d known of Ron for some time even before I came into the business, he was already so well established. But I worked with him for the first time when he directed me in a (dark comedy) BBC series called Bad Boys. And one scene called for my character to be threatened by this big gorilla gangster, played by Jimmy Cosmo, who comes storming into my snooker hall.
“Anyway, as the gorilla battered his way in, I moved back, fell onto a chair and the sheer terror in me sent the chair backwards. It was a funny scene, but I thought it could be funnier if I played out the rest of the scene with me on the floor, too terrified to get back up again. Ron initially said no, but I nudged him, and he came round to the idea and said we could have a go.
“And it worked. It was really funny, and Ron acknowledged the idea was great. But the point is, a lot of directors wouldn’t have listened in the first place. They often seem to know best. That wasn’t Ron at all. He was a lovely man, a real professional who was prepared to listen.”
Norton adds; “And I think being an actor really helped. He understood the process.”
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Ron Bain grew up in Grangemouth with dreams of becoming an actor and trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. He made his television debut in 1971 alongside actor Roddy McMillan in the BBC Scotland drama The View from Daniel Pike in 1971.
Bain also formed a great working relationship with comedy legend Rikki Fulton, the pair first appearing on stage together in an acclaimed production of the Moliere play The Miser, that same year. Bain’s long career as a character actor included appearances in Play of the Month in 1975 as well as The XYY Men and Taggart. And his theatre lead in the Scottish Theatre’s Company’s production of Jamie the Saxt in 1985 resulted in audiences’ (and critics’) hands stinging from the applause.
Former Comedy Unit producer and director Colin Gilbert had a working relationship with Ron Bain that goes back 50 years. “I first worked with Ron when I was assistant stage manager, which basically meant making the tea, when I worked on a school’s drama The Twa Corbies. What I realised at the time was that there were some actors who were nice and some not so nice, and Ron was one of the nice ones.”
Gilbert raced up the career ladder, and he came to employ Ron Bain in a range of productions. “He was a very good actor who never quite got the credit he deserved, but he had a real talent for comedy, as you could see in A Kick Up the Eighties.
“He was also in Naked Radio in 1980, and an unbroken line of comedies, including the pilot of City Lights. What he could bring to the productions was this lankly gormless character, but he was also very versatile. You could get him to play an 85-year-old and just as easily a 17-year-old.” The producer smiles. “And if you can remember back to the 1975 TV drama play Chips with Everything, he played a 19-year-old.” (Bain was 30 at the time.)
Colin Gilbert was the man behind Ron Bain’s move behind the camera. “I got let down at the last minute by a person who was supposed to direct City Lights,” he recalls of the hit sitcom starring Gerard Kelly, Jonathan Watson and Dave Anderson. “Ron wanted to help out, so he came to me and said he was happy to direct the cast in the rehearsal rooms if someone else were to shoot it. And that worked great because Ron had been a theatre director, but it worked so well that we thought he really deserved the chance at working on film so we got him trained up. The BBC directors course at the time was the Rolls Royce of courses and he was soon off and running.”
The Comedy Unit boss however smiles as he recalls that Ron Bain’s filming skills, early on, needed a little tweaking. “I remember him blocking off a scene featuring Willie Melvin (Kelly), and he was ready to shoot it, but I had to point out that it was lovely, but the way he’d directed the camera meant he was also taking in the whole studio audience as well. That said, he got the hang of it very quickly.”
(Image: Ron Bain worked as a director on City Lights)
Ron Bain went on to act with and direct Fulton in his TV sketch show Scotch and Wry and its spin-offs featuring the character Reverend IM Jolly. He worked as a producer and director on a wide range of comedy and drama programmes including The Tales of Para Handy, The Bill, River City and the Karen Dunbar Show.
Former Taggart star Colin McCredie was a close pal. “I first met Ron when we appeared together in Babes in the Wood in Perth,” he recalls. “I was only 12, and Ron played Dame, and he made a real impression on me. From that time, I’d see him working in the BBC studio, and when I worked in the box office in Perth, Ron was an associate director.”
Their families were friends. Colin McCredie was also close with Bain’s late wife, Jen, who was also an actor, at one time appearing in TV soap High Living and Dr Finlay’s Casebook.
“And what I came to realise was that not only was Ron a great actor and a director, but he was also an incredibly unassuming man.” McCredie smiles as he recalls one incident. “One night I went out for a meal with Ron and Off the Ball presenter Tam Cowan in Dunkeld. Now, I was fairly recognisable from my Taggart years, and Tam certainly is well known, but as we walked along a lady stopped in her tracks and declared ‘You’re Ron Bain. I’m such an admirer of your work!’ And this is in spite of Ron not having been on screen for 20 years. But Ron took it all in his stride, even when Tam and I took the mickey about his appeal to elderly ladies.”
Ron Bain died after a short illness. He was married to wife Jennifer, who pre-deceased him, and they are survived by Tim and Gemma.
