Tony Roper: it’s like playing a posh Jamesie and Ella!

Tony Roper is set to play Hercule Poirot alongside old Rab C sparring partner Barbara Rafferty.

Tony Roper has made a career out of playing Glasgow patter merchants and chancers. So his latest role comes as a surprise not least to him.

The 72-year-old Rab C Nesbitt star will play Hercule Poirot in a new production from the renowned Agatha Christie Theatre Company.

He plays the Belgian sleuth in Murder On Air, three original radio thrillers performed in front of a theatre audience, and was delighted to be considered even if he didn’t quite understand the format at first.

“I’m a huge Christie fan and have seen every episode of Poirot,” Tony said.

“My agent told me I’d been asked to do Agatha Christie on radio and when I saw the offer I thought it was really good money for radio, but then I got another call asking me for my measurements, which confused me.

“It was only when I looked it up online that I realised it wasn’t for radio, but in a radio play format for theatre.

“The Poirot play is The Yellow Iris. Of course, I have to do the accent otherwise it would be the Govan version. It would be like Jamesie Cotter walking about trying to solve crimes!”

Tony will star opposite his on-screen wife Barbara Rafferty, who plays long-suffering Ella in Rab C.

“Jamesie and Ella are to be reunited, but this time we’ll be posh. It’s all very upper class people I’m playing, which I’m not really known for, so I’m looking forward to doing something different.”

Tony, who was treated for prostate cancer last year, has just finished his autobiography, I’ll No Tell You Again. But he doesn’t believe anyone will want to read it.

“The publishers have been on at me for years and I always said no,” he said.

“I don’t have that type of soapy, melodramatic life, so why would anyone want to buy it? The publishers sat me down one day and gave me the heavy sell and eventually I said yes, but I’m still not convinced folk will buy it.

“I didn’t become an actor until later in life and I think the most interesting parts in the book are about the times before I was famous. I’ve let a couple of folk read it and they liked it but they were my pals, so they had to say that!”

Agatha Christie’s Murder On Air is at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow, from July 8 to 12.