A Still Game favourite is gearing to perform a new stand up show in Greenock next month.

Paul Riley, who played Winston in the smash hit BBC comedy series, is bringing The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot to the Beacon on September 6.

The Bafta-Award winning star, who has a career in writing, writing and performing spanning 35 years, is no stranger to Inverclyde, and says he is looking forward to coming back.

(Image: Red Shoe Entertainments)

Paul, 54, said: "I've been to the Beacon before with An Evening with Paul Riley and also spent a week there with a National Theatre Production of The Wicker Man.

"I'm looking forward to it, I think the Beacon is a lovely space. It's beautiful, the rehearsal rooms look out right across the water."

The actor is having great fun with his stand up show which is touring all over the country and Northern Ireland and last month even took it to New York.

Paul said: "I'm having a great laugh with it. I'm 55 next year, I'm entering the third act of my life and this show covers everything I've been through all my life, no two shows are ever the same.

"I took the show to New York last month and it was mental, people came from Boston, Philadelphia, Toronto and LA to see the show. It was absolutely brilliant.

"They all love Still Game. It was the Netflix effect. Still Game was my second act in that respect: all the hard work was done, everybody knows the show."

Paul was part of the Still Game family from the very start, starring in the original stage play alongside creators Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill, which toured Scotland, Ireland and Canada in 1999 - three years before the first episode of the TV series aired.

He said the success of Still Game was beyond his wildest dreams and it wasn't until the live show he realised how big it was.

He said: "The BBC used to say we were 39 or 40 per cent in the ratings. That didn't mean a hill of beans to me, but when you play to 12,000 a night at the Hydro you think 'people really like this show', from taxi drivers and people in the street.

(Image: Red Shoe Entertainments)

"It's become a treasure. You don't expect old folk to be rebellious, but everyone knows an Isa or Boabby the barman."

Asked how much he was like his on-screen persona Winston, he quipped: "We both share the star sign Aries, I guess the main difference is I am growing old gracefully and Winston disgracefully."

He said one of the reasons he started the stand-up show was to take his own stories to the audience.

Paul said: "Around 95 per cent of the people who came to see us at the Hydro had a Glasgow postcode. That amazed me, so I thought 'I'll go to them', and I've been all over Scotland and Northern Ireland.

"I love the interaction with the audience. With Still Game we were in the corner of people's living rooms, and now I am right in front of them.

"I tend to tell stories that happen to be funny, things that have happened in my life.

"I'm friends with the lead guitarist in Motörhead, and we found ourselves in a delicate situation in New York City. I also found myself in an altercation with a bishop."

Other scenarios featured in the new show include being held at gunpoint by armed police and being locked in a cupboard with the Krankies.

Paul said: "That's one of the reasons you need to buy a ticket and hear the stories from the life I've lived. I thought 'I'm going to share this with everybody'."

The show also includes audio-visuals and clips when Paul was young.

The actor, who hails from Milton in Glasgow, beat off applications from 40,000 other aspiring performers to secure a place at drama school, although he had to lie to take up his place.

(Image: Red Shoe Entertainments)
"You had to be 19," he said, "and I was only 18, and I had to send my birth certificate.

"I was working at the Pavilion at the time, so I got the artist who did the scenery to forge my birth certificate."

Paul is also taking The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot to the Edinburgh Fringe this week, bringing him 'full circle' in a way, to the city where the seeds of Still Game were sown alongside its creators back in the mid-1990s.

He said: "This Friday I'm going back to the festival with this show."

For more information on the show and to book tickets visit beaconartscentre.co.uk/events.