Greg Hemphill
About Greg Hemphill
In 1988 Greg attended Glasgow University’s Film and Television course, graduating in 1992. While still at university he secured his first BBC radio commission in 1989, called “The Quest for Elvis.” A year later at the Edinburgh Festival in 1990 he won the prestigious “So You Think Your Funny” award performing with two University pals under the name The Three Men Trio Brothers Troupe. By the mid 90’s he was writing regularly for Naked Video and Craig Ferguson before getting his first break performing and writing as part of the team for BBC 2 T.V sketch show Pulp Video. In 1997 he returned to the Edinburgh Festival with Ford Kiernan where they wrote and performed their one act play Still Game, in front of about 8 people nightly. In 1999 they were given the opportunity to create a radio show for BBC Scotland called Chewin’ the Fat, which ran for over 80 episodes, before transferring to television for four years where it ended up on BBC 1 network. Chewin’ the Fat drew huge audiences, (by series 2 every episode was drawing over 55% audience share.) The show won a Scottish Bafta and “Un Mention” at the Golden Rose awards in Montreux, Switzerland. In 2002 Greg and Ford wrote and performed their BBC1 sitcom Still Game which he is probably best known for. It ran for 6 series and 44 episodes, won three Scottish Baftas, then the two parted company in 2007. Since 2007, Greg has been focused on screen writing and has co-written a number of screenplays with fellow horror geek pal Donald McLeary as well as taking on script doctoring work for Film 4. The two also co-wrote Appointment with the Wicker Man for the National Theatre of Scotland (which Greg also performed in) in 2012. In September 2014, Greg re-united with Ford and they announced the return of their much loved sitcom Still Game which they performed live at Glasgow’s Hydro Arena in front of 210,000 people, over 21 nights. (60,000 more people than attended Monty Python at London’s O2!) 2014 also saw him appear as First Minister Jack McConnell in the award winning BBC 3 programme GLASGOW GIRLS. He also hooked up with producer Carolynne Sinclair-Kidd, and a mere 26 years after completing his film degree, he finally wrote and directed his first film, a short called GASPING, starring Frankie Boyle, which had its world premier at the L.A ComedyFestival. He’s been married to the actor Julie Wilson Nimmo (The one you are about to see in “The Banshee”) for 20 years. Despite this, she took direction from him very well, only telling him to bugger off once. They have two children together, who are big fans of the fast food chain KFC.