Scotland the fit? Erza pucklie new loons and quines wi' a bar or twa tae gie ye a bit laugh

KITTLE up yer lugs!* Doric, that distinctive dialect of north-east Scotland, could be on for a comedy comeback after years of Central Belt humorists getting all the best lines.

BBC Scotland has commissioned the first radio comedy show in Doric since Scotland the What?, the pioneering act which bowed out 12 years ago after blazing a trail for north-east humour for more than 25 years.

Producer and talent scout Margaret-Anne Docherty said: "We have never done anything like this before. Many Scots won't be used to hearing it, and may struggle at first to understand some of it. But we don't compromise the Doric."

The BBC believes its new series, Desperate Fishwives, which it describes as a break from "the usual diet from the Central Belt", will hook a new generation on the dry wit of the North-east.

Buff Hardie, Stephen Robertson and George Donald blazed a trail for Doric humour when they launched Scotland the What? at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1969. Their act, which ran for 26 years, spanned stage and TV and turned the trio into national celebrities. Desperate Fishwives can justifiably claim to be carrying that comedy torch as one of the eight-strong troupe, John Hardie, is Hardie's son.

The members of the troupe who met at Aberdeen University, formed a theatre company in 1996 and performed their debut show to an audience of 400 over three nights. However, a loyal local following meant that by this year, their appearance at Aberdeen's His Majesty's theatre drew an audience of 6,000.

In the first 30-minute episode on Saturday, listeners will be introduced to spoof chat-show host, Robbie Shepherd, who gets his own programme because he is cheap to hire - or, as he puts, it: "Nae price is muckle low fir me."

He introduces himself and interview guests with the phrase "fit like, foo ye dein?" and calls all his guests quine or loon.

In a spoof interview with Kate Moss and Pete Doherty, he tells the frequently befuddled pop star: "A'm nae surprised ye canna unnerstand fit a'm saying. A saw you earlier stotting aboot and slurrin yer words - oot o the game wi drink nae doot, ken?"

And on troubled singer Amy Winehouse, he adds: "Michty, she's a hell of a fearsome looking quine, is she?"

Other characters in the show include the "couthie Doric vampire" and bowling fanatics Archie and Davie, whose refrain is that they are just "chavin awa!" - or getting on with it.

The most successful Scots comedy products have so far come from the west coast in the form of Govan's street philosopher Rab C Nesbitt and popular sitcom Still Game. Both shows became UK-wide hits after making the jump to network television. STV's comedy drama High Times, set in a Glaswegian tower block, was last year sold to 22 countries across Latin America. It was, however, dubbed into Spanish for local viewers.

BBC Scotland hopes Desperate Fishwives will be accessible across Scotland and may even achieve that supreme accolade of any comedy by spawning Doric catchphrases.

Brian McNair, a media analyst, said: "There is a tradition of strong Scottish comedy which focuses on specifics of Scottishness. The jokes in these shows tend to take the form of laughing at ourselves, for example the Rab [C Nesbitt] stereotype, which is a knowing, self- deprecatory stance on working-class life."

Scotland the What? ended in 1995 with a final performance at His Majesty's Theatre in Aberdeen. Despite playing to audiences across the UK and receiving MBEs to mark their longevity in showbusiness, the trio were suitably modest about their act - which they once summed up as "three semi-literate Scots taking an irreverent look at their country's institutions."

• Desperate Fishwives will be broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland tomorrow at 12:05pm.

*Pin back your ears.

'EXPRESSIVE' DIALOGUE IS IDEAL FOR COMEDY

WHAT makes Doric a good vehicle for comedy? Derrick McClure, senior lecturer in the English department of Aberdeen University, has one explanation. "The dialogue is very rich, very expressive, it's been used for poetry for well over a hundred years.

"What Scotland the What? did, more than anybody else, was establish a tradition of stage humour involving quick-fire dialogue which was used to parody or gently mock some of the traits of Aberdeenshire character."

Those traits - a reputation for being insular, taciturn and suspicious of change - have long been the butt of local jokes.

That sense of being remote is summed up by one exchange in which two Aberdonians discuss the village of Rhynie.

One person ventures: "There's some folk in London that have never heard of Rhynie," to which the reply comes: "There's some folk in Rhynie that have never heard of London."

The dialect can be traced back to the 16th century. Its distinctiveness is derived from the fact that the North-east did not have good road access to the Central Belt and so developed its own linguistic traditions.

The stubborn character attributed to Aberdeenshire is summed up by another sketch in which two friends talk on a doorstep. Every few minutes, the householder says to the visitor "Are you no comin' in?", to which the answer repeatedly is: "I'm nae comin' in! I'm nae comin' in!"