| This article appeared in the BBC Radio Times April 1997 |
| Proving you're never too old for an acting career
by Alison Graham |
| A first major acting job working alongside Sir Laurence Olivier isn't a bad start for a rookie actor attempting to make a name for himself in cut-throat profession. Add to that the fact that the rookie is approaching middle age, and the achievement is even more remarkable. |
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| But then Ralph Riach, now in his sixties, who plays TV John McIver in BBC1's Sunday-night drama Hamish Macbeth, is unlike most actors. At the age of 45 he decided he could no longer bear to be a self-employed upholsterer and gave that up to follow his heart - into acting. |
| Since then Riach has never been out of work. His TV credits include The Bill, Chancer, Dr Finlay, Taggart, Tutti Frutti (in which, coincidentally, Stuart McGugan - Barney in Hamish Macbeth - also starred), Rides and Casualty, among many others. But it is as Hamish Macbeth's psychic right-hand man that he's best known. |
| Riach naturally has no regrets about his mid-life change of career. "I had been working as an architectural draughtsman, but I gave it up because I hated it so much. I then went on to be a self-employed upholsterer and a theatrical landlord in Perth. Richard Todd was my first lodger." |
| Perth's amateur operatic society provided some channel for Riach's acting aspirations, but the occasional production was not enough. "I had been interested in acting since I was a teenager, but I came from Elgin, where going into acting was just unheard of." He finally took the plunge in 1984 and enrolled at drama college in Glasgow. "When I realised you didn't need academic qualifications to be an actor I just thought, You've got to have a go. If you don't try now you have only yourself to blame." Being the oldest in his class did not bother him. "I got on fine, I behaved like a kid myself and I thoroughly enjoyed my three years there." |
| The role alongside Lord Olivier was in Granada's production Lost Empires, and others quickly followed. TV John came out of the blue with a message left on Riach's answering machine by Deirdre Kerr, who produced the first two series of Hamish Macbeth. "I was delighted," he says. "He's a smashing character, I shall miss him." |
| TV John goes out in dramatic fashion in a two-part story, starting this week, which ends what seems likely to be the final series. But that doesn't mean Riach has severed his links with Plockton, the Scottish west-coast village that doubles as Hamish's beat, Lochdubh. "I went up there for a New Year and had a terrific time". |
