The work of the Scottish painter and playwright John Byrne, who has died aged 83, was all of a piece. His characters and caricatures, on stage or canvas, all stemmed from a sly, literate sense of humour, a close acquaintance with popular culture, and a fierce political independence.
Byrne himself entered that realm of popular culture with two acclaimed drama series on television after 20 years of hard graft in his studio and in the theatre. Tutti Frutti (1987) was an explosively funny six-part BBC series about a chaotic touring rock band, the Majestics (“Scotland’s Kings of Rock”), led by Robbie Coltrane, and whose members include Emma Thompson and Maurice Roëves, with Richard Wilson as their increasingly dour and exasperated manager.
