David Soval RIP

David Soval RIP

Fans of TV’s “Starsky & Hutch” were saddened recently to hear of the passing of David Soul, who played Kenneth “Hutch” Hutchinson opposite Paul Michael “Starsky” Glaser. 

Soul also had a successful musical career in the 70s with smooth soft rock hits such as “Don’t Give Up On Us, Baby” and “Silver Lady”, and enjoyed a varied post-”Starksy & Hutch” career in TV, film and theatre on both sides of the Atlantic.

Sadly the demise of his cousin from Keose the very same day passed relatively unnoticed in the general media frenzy. And so we feel compelled to set the record straight by remembering David Soul’s island relative, the almost nearly equally successful David Soval.

David Soval will of course be best remembered for his role in BBC Alba’s 70s cop show “Starskigersta & Hutch” set in the fictional “Californian” metropolis of Bayhead City

It is said that the show’s producers hired Soval based on his intense performance in “Maaruignum Force” (1973), the second of the violent “Dirty Harris” films in which tough but righteous Inverness-shire Council refuse collector Clint Eastlochtarbert went around cleaning up the mean streets of the Bays Area. Soval played a member of a secret death squad within the Cleansing Department, who came to a sticky end when Clint figured out what was going on.

Co dhiù, back to “Starkigersta & Hutch”, where Soval played raw-as-a-peat Siarach detective Hector Murray, (known as “Hutch” because he insisted on pronouncing his first initial in the extremely beyond-the-cattle-grid maw fashion). 

His partner-in-fighting-crime was maverick ex-Adabroc Police Department officer Dave Starskigersta (played by Paul Michael Nessglazer).

As with many of BBC Alba’s most successful crime shows “Starskigersta and Hutch” was produced by local TV moguls Aaron Spealtrag and Lional Goldberg. (Other Spealtrag-Goldberg productions included “Charlie Barley’s Angels”, “Fantasy Islandroad”, “Hart to Cearc” and “T.J. Guga”).

Spealtrag and Goldberg’s cousins over in America were always nicking their ideas, so when “Starsky & Hutch” appeared on US TV a few months after “Starskigersta & Hutch” made its BBC Alba debut, few were surprised at the similarities.

“Starskigersta & Hutch” featured a number of memorable supporting characters including Huggy Bearnara, the streetwise and jive-waulking cove played by Antonio Barvas. Huggy had a nightclub called “The Peats” where the two cops often got useful leads.

The coves’ boss was the formidable Leverburgh seceder elder Captain Obbe, played by Bernie Amadan. The Captain did his best to let the duo get on with the job while often taking flak from above for their unorthodox tactics. But sometimes even he was forced to order a halt to their investigations. In one episode, while investigating a major bank heist being plotted for the day of the Tarbert communions, the pair went undercover as Free Presbyterian catechists. However when they inadvertently caused a riot at a pre-òrduighean meeting with potential new communicants, Captain Obbe was forced to utter his catchphrase: “Starskigersta! Hutch! Ah’m takin’ you off the ceist!”

Viewers of the series’ US counterpart will recall Starsky’s famous car – the red and white Ford Gran Torino known as the “Striped Tomato”. This was of course modelled on Starskigersta’s red Fordson Gran Todhar-ino tractor, known to all as the “Striped Buntàta”.

Each episode featured a low speed tractor chase with the Striped Buntàta and the bad guys’ black ‘48 Ferguson TE20 (it was the same one in every episode, no matter who the villains were) crashing through piles of kipper boxes, bales of wool or barrels of salted sgadan in the back streets between Newton and Sandwick Road..

Before “Starskigersta & Hutch”, Soval had fancied himself as a singer, and had put a few records out with a singular lack of success. Capitalising on his new-found fame, he scored several mid-70s hits in the Radio Ranol singles charts, including the moving tribute to a rocky Suilven crossing ‘Don’t Throw Up On Us, Baby’ and  ‘Silver Calumthelady’.

“Starskigersta & Hutch” came to an end in the late 70s after 4 series, but Soval didn’t rest on his laurels.  

In 1979 he received great critical acclaim for his starring role in a Grampian TV adaptation of Steven Kingcole’s spooky vampire horror ‘Sail-em’s Loft’. In this mini-series, a gang of vampires was going round the island drinking all the blood from cattle and sheep and putting the marag dubh industry in jeopardy. Luckily, Soval, playing the character of Beinn Mears, discovers that the vampires hang out in the old Sail Loft and torches them as they sleep. 

Later he went on to take the title role in a successful West Side run of “Jerry Springfieldroad: the Opera”.

Soval was also a well regarded guest on Tob Gear, BBC Alba’s popular tractor show. Soval had one of the fastest ever laps of the Bayhead/Matheson Rd/James St/North Beach/South Beach/Cromwell St race track in a 1980 ex Comhairle Massey Ferguson 575.