From Blackhill to the Big Apple in Bertie Auld's Celtic blazer - Des McLean Big Interview

One of them is a Celtic-supporting comedian. The other is his alter-ego - the one and only Bertie Auld.

McLean has been wowing audiences up and down the country with his portrayal of the late Lisbon Lion in Jim Orr's play Bend It Like Bertie.

The show was written by Celtic diehard Orr but was put on hold because of lockdown for the best part of 18 months.

The stage production finally opened in Webster's Theatre in Glasgow and has been playing to sell-out audiences all over the country ever since. McLean and company will take centre stage for a three-day run at Glasgow's Pavilion theatre early next year.

It has become such a huge hit that the play is now going Stateside with bookings confirmed for Las Vegas and New York in the spring of 2023.

Not only that, the show will be playing at the same venue where Elvis Presley enjoyed the longest ever residency run in Las Vegas – the Westgate. The King of Rock 'n' Roll performed a total of 636 shows at the hotel from 1969 to 1976, with every one sold-out.

Vegas also happens to be where the Auld ‘character’ was perfected; McLean honed his impersonation during a 10-hour flight back from the City of Sin seated right next to the great man himself.

"I listened to Bertie for 10 hours on the plane coming back from Las Vegas and now I know there was a reason for that,” McLean told The Celtic Way. “I wanted to be Bertie and get it right when I played him on stage. I never got a word in – and I can talk, believe me.

“We had a one-way 10-hour conversation. This was like a Celtic fan winning a competition to spend the day with Bertie Auld. He spoke about the Lisbon Lions, Jock Stein… everything.

“Bertie saw me playing at the Las Vegas Celtic Convention and came up and told me that he loved my performance – it was a fantastic compliment. I have been on stage with him in Las Vegas and in the Ranza Bar in Blackhill. Bertie was equally at home in both settings.”

And for the Ruchazie-born, Blackhill-raised McLean, fan reaction to his star turn as the beloved club icon has left him staggered as he approaches next year’s Stateside shows.

READ MORE: Bertie Auld remembered - The Celtic force of nature with a rapier wit and heart of a Lion

"A friend said to me ‘you need to nail this because everybody loves Bertie’,” he recalls. “I could not make a fool of him, disrespect him or his family or make him sound like this or that. Everybody loved Bertie and without a word of a lie a few of my Rangers supporting pals came along to see the play and they thought it was great too. They thought the story was good and that is a real compliment to my portrayal of Bertie.

"I have been asked to do comedy gigs as Bertie Auld. I was going on holiday and people were saying to me at the airport we saw you as Bertie. It was brilliant. It has become a bit of an alter-ego.

“I am just a boy from Ruchazie and now I am heading to Las Vegas and New York to play Bertie on stage. What an honour and thrill that is.”

That is all nothing compared to the endorsement of the Auld family, who have been wowed by his performances and moved to tears by his talent.

McLean said: “Robert Auld, Bertie's son, told me that his dad would always start his sentence with the words I promise you…

"Robert, an absolute gentleman, told me that I was brilliant and that had got his dad off to a tee. The voice, his mannerisms everything so I was delighted and humbled by that. Robert told me I absolutely nailed it. That was the ‘oh my God’ moment for me.”

The family went a step further, however, and blew McLean away by presenting him with a stunning gift: one of Bertie’s coveted Lisbon Lions blazers.

"Robert came to Greenock to see the play the night before Bertie died,” he recalls. “He had to leave at the interval and we all knew then that Bertie was going to pass away.

“I asked him back to see the play when we took it on stage again. He requested tickets for Motherwell and all of his grandkids came and sat in the front row. I always worried whenever Bertie's family were in attendance as I did not want to be disrespectful – that night it was more of a tribute to him.

"There is a sad scene where Bertie talks about his whole career and the honours he won at Celtic and then says these words ‘I never walked alone and the Celtic fans never forgot me’. It was emotional saying those lines and I well up whenever I say those words every time. The play then cuts to a montage of Bertie and his family with Robert on his back as a toddler and it is all very poignant.

"Robert came down to the dressing room and his wife told me he was breaking his heart that night. He was inconsolable at that moment. We caught the right tone – it was happy, sad and emotional and Robert absolutely loved it. Jim said it was tough to write those lines bit but that they get the kind of reaction you want from audiences. It is a really strong piece in the play and good theatre is meant to grip you like that. When Robert said what he did it was kind of job done and mission accomplished.

"Then out of the blue he asked what size of jacket I was. I thought nothing of it really. I genuinely did not expect it but all of a sudden I got a message from Robert saying ‘here is a gift from my mum, Elizabeth’ and it was the Lisbon Lions blazer.

"I picked it up and I could not believe it. I was gobsmacked. I wore it for the first time in Oban. What a gesture and what an honour. The gift just blew me away really.

"I felt like Tiger Woods. I felt as if I had won the US Masters and was being presented with the green jacket. When Robert put it on me – it fitted like a glove. I felt as if I had just been transported to Augusta for the ceremony and I was getting presented with the green blazer. It is like Rocky Balboa giving you his boxing gloves.

"Robert told me to look inside the pocket as there were ink stains all over it as Bertie always carried so many pens in his pocket because, wherever he went, somebody always asked for his autograph. That made it all the more authentic. I couldn’t believe the family would give me such an incredible gift.

“The blazer was the ultimate seal of approval from the family and that was the thumbs up. It does not get any better than that, although the penny only really dropped for me when I was painting my fence one day in the back garden.

“It was right after the tour when all the dust had settled and all the glitter had fallen and it was a few days after it and I was no longer in ‘Bertieland’ or in Bertie mode and it hit me. I remember saying to my wife ‘I've got Bertie Auld's blazer!’”

McLean reckons that, fundamentally, ‘being’ Bertie has transformed his life and he considers it as close to the dream-come-true of actually playing for Celtic as he could get.

He dearly wishes that his father Frank was around to see it all as he adored Auld – although his mother Patsy still beams with pride at her boy.

“My father would have been proud to see me as Bertie on stage,” McLean said. “My mother was really chuffed because my dad loved Bertie, he was his favourite player.

 "Ironically my dad used Bertie's name as rhyming slang when I was a kid. ‘It's Bertie Auld out there son, get a jaiket on,’ he'd say to me when I was growing up.

"It is genuinely like playing for Celtic when I pull on that blazer and become such an iconic man up on that stage. I didn't need to see Bertie play as I still loved him as a Celtic fan. He epitomised everything that is good about Celtic. It is the next best thing to being a Celtic player.

“In the most surreal way, I have been passed the ‘Mr Celtic’ baton. It was Robert his son who said to me that I was keeping his stories and his legacy alive. This is a real legend we are talking about and to have been given the blazer is just something that was beyond my wildest dreams.

“When I told Robert that we were taking Bend it like Bertie to Vegas, he came away with a great one-liner. Robert simply said ‘the blazer returns to Vegas!’

"When I put on that blazer I feel like I have been given a superpower and I know that sounds mad but it is like ‘the cloak of Bertie Auld’. The sheer joy I feel at portraying Bertie and wearing that blazer is absolutely priceless. In my opinion, I think he has a valid claim alongside Jinky [Jimmy Johnstone] to being called the greatest ever Celt.

"Incidentally the entertainment icon that is Barry Manilow is playing in the same room as us in Las Vegas when we are there next spring. My next ambition is to get Barry Manilow to dish out some Bend It Like Bertie flyers in his downtime!"

Ironically now whenever McLean dons his green ‘jaiket’, he actually is Bertie Auld out there.

To use a sporting analogy, when Carl Lewis ran the final leg of the 4x100m relay race for Team USA at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics commentator David Coleman famously said: "The big man has the baton and history is being made."

Well, to paraphrase Coleman, the wee man has the baton and history is being preserved.

• Bend It Like Bertie will return to Glasgow's Pavilion Theatre from February 9 to 11 2023