Brian Cox to play Dundonian 'man of the people' Bob Servant
Dundee author Neil Forsyth is celebrating a double success after Hollywood star Brian Cox was announced to play the leading character in a new BBC Scotland radio adaptation of one of his books.
Brian Cox.
- By Alan Wilson
- Published in the Courier : 04.10.10
- Published online : 04.10.10 @ 06.51am
The Dundonian actor will bring Bob Servant, a 64-year-old "former cheeseburger and window cleaning magnate," to radio for the first time. And the book's sequel, Hero Of Dundee, will be launched in November.
Bob Servant — a gregarious wheeler-dealer and "self-proclaimed man of the people" — is the star of a series of humorous books by Neil. Brian Cox, the star of X-Men 2, Braveheart and The Bourne Supremacy, plays Bob in a BBC adaptation of Delete This At Your Peril — The Bob Servant Emails.
The book follows Servant's hilarious email correspondence with real-life online con artists and their promises of easy money, love and employment. The Nigerian con artists, potential Russian brides and so-called African lawyers become embroiled and increasingly frustrated at Bob's manic and hare-brained schemes back in his home in Broughty Ferry.
Brian Cox welcomed the chance to play a comic character from his hometown, saying, "My friend passed me the book and the first thing I did was to check my spam email folder. I found an email from Mervyn King at the Bank of England offering to share $20 million with me. It made me laugh.
"I think the Bob Servant character is great and captures Dundonian humour, particularly the Dundee nose for bulls***. I don't think anywhere has a nose for bulls*** like Dundee.
"Bob is very much in the tradition of Dundonian comic creations and I feel a lot of McGonagall in him. I'm very much looking forward to playing him."
Neil (32), who recently returned to Scotland after a professional screenwriting course at the New York Film Academy, is delighted with the radio adaptation.
The Broughty Ferry writer said, "It's brilliant to have Brian Cox on board. He is a great supporter of Dundee — a local boy done good, which Bob also thinks he is — so there's a nice link there. It will be fascinating to see him inhabit the Bob Servant persona.
An amalgamation
"I spent 15 years working and drinking in bars in Broughty Ferry and he is an amalgamation of about a dozen local characters.
"I am also a fan of the Flashman novels by George MacDonald Fraser and of William McGonagall, who has the same kind of unbridled ambition as Bob and not a lot to back it up with."
The BBC Scotland programme will go out for six weeks, every Friday at 1.45pm, beginning on October 29. Each episode is an adaptation of an email exchange from the book.
Brian Cox jetted in from New York at the weekend and recorded at the BBC studios in Glasgow. He will be joined by other top British actors, including comedians Felix Dexter and Sanjeev Kohli, who will play the spammers.
Neil found success with his first book Other People's Money, a true-life account of credit card fraudster Elliot Castro.
Starting when he was 16, Castro led police, the banks and foreign law enforcement agencies on a five-year chase round the world, during which he stole millions of pounds from banks.
Since his debut Neil has created the Bob Servant series and written another novel that exposes the tricks psychics use to deceive people. He is now hoping to write a screenplay of Other People's Money after a film studio which optioned the rights to the book allowed them to lapse. He is also writing a second novel for Random House which is set in Ibiza in 1989.
His publisher Birlinn is republishing Delete This At Your Peril — The Bob Servant Emails on November 1 with some additional material on the same day as the sequel, Bob Servant — Hero Of Dundee, is released.
"Bob Servant has really captured the imagination, really coming from a word-of-mouth success before getting some support by people in the public eye, including Irvine Welsh," Neil said.
"He is such a strong character and one that I think I could do so much with. The Edinburgh Festival has agreed to do a live performance of the Bob Servant emails next year. I would also love to bring him to television. Really, the world is Bob's oyster."
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