Tears. And laughter. But certainly tears. There will no doubt be more than a few appearing in the corner of Gavin Mitchell’s eye during his upcoming Edinburgh Fringe show, Look Who It Isnae. The actor isn’t one to camouflage his emotions. It’s part of his make-up to, well, reflect.

And the Still Game star will rewind on his life and times and talk of the great and the good he’s worked with over the years, the people and the moments that have helped form his character. Indeed, we’re only a couple of minutes into chat for example when he recalls appearing on stage at Glasgow’s King’s Theatre in panto, taking over the late Gerard Kelly’s slot.

Each night, he explains, he made a thank you speech to Kelly, whom he was closer to than the Doc Martens Kelly wore on stage. “And each night the tears formed in my eyes. But I had no idea I was crying.”

And there’s the Still Game experience. Mitchell admits that when it came to filming the last episode, where the world said goodbye to the characters for ever (until they were resurrected for the sell-out shows at the Hydro) he had real problems.

“All seemed to go well, and I was ready for the final take, but then the make-up assistant handed me a hankie. She didn’t say anything. She just pointed to my eye, and I suddenly became aware I’d been crying.”

It doesn’t take a psychologist to work out why Gavin Mitchell’s sensitivity buttons are perhaps more accessible than most. His early years were the scene of desperation and chaos. His parents divorced and his mother remarried, but one day she "went out for a pint of milk and never came back". Mitchell's stepdad died when young Gavin was 12 and his biological dad soon after.

Gavin MitchellGavin Mitchell (Image: free)

“But I don’t know how much I’ll talk about my personal background on stage,” he underlines. “This is a show which I hope will make the audience laugh. Yes, there is another show to staged about my depression, my nervous breakdown but I want this one to be funny.”

He grins. “I want to offer up my Mick Jagger impression from BBC’s Velvet Soup. I may drop in my Humphrey Bogart impression from the stage show Casablanca.”

Yet, there needs to be a little drama, a hint of darkness to explain how you came into the light. “Oh, yeah, that’s also so true. So, I’ll probably talk about how I came to be at the Citizens Theatre and the move into acting.”

Mitchell, despite the chaos in his family life still managed to do exceptionally well at school and was headed for art school until life got in the way, and he then found himself working as a theatre scene painter. From there he became an extra, and loved the new world he found himself in, a place of escape.

“Yes, all of that is true,” he says, smiling. And it was a place in which he met the likes of Rupert Everett and Glenda Jackson. “And I’ll have the chance to talk about the different jobs I’ve had, such as working on Monarch of the Glen with Tom Baker and later on with Robin Williams. And shows such as Revolver gave me the chance to work with legends I’d admired over the years, the likes of Melvyn Hayes, Roy Barraclough and Julie Goodyear. And the fabulous Honor Blackman.”

There will be backstage stories from Still Game, of course. “I’ll talk about me not being the original Boabby and the wee hangover that existed from that because Boabby had a daughter and a wife in the first episode, yet they were never mentioned again.”

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Mitchell will talk about Still Game at the Hydro, about the show’s impact upon his life. “And so very often it amounts to someone shouting out at me, (affectionately) ‘Two pints ya pr**k,’ (a catch line reference to the abuse his character took from Jack and Victor.)

"You know, recently, I went to Gran Canaria, and for some reason I wasn’t recognised, then I got on the plane and flight attendant came over and gave me a note. It was very nice and spoke of mutual friends and this person mentioned I’d once written something for him and said ‘I’d like to buy you a drink, ya pr**k.’ And it was signed ‘Captain Patrick.’ He laughs hard. “I had been called a pr**k at 35,000 feet.”

But if he gets time in the show, the actor will tell a story that will surely have Edinburgh’s eyes watering. It’s about a new documentary he’s putting together, about how libraries can grow and save a soul, and he’ll talk about how he was saved by his school pal and taken to the library. And how he’s tracked down his pal from over 50 years ago.

“It’s an amazing story,” he says, and you can sense at least one orb moistening already.

Look Who It Isnae, Stand 3, The Stand Comedy Club, August 12-14

Don’t Miss: Love Beyond, Ramesh Meyyappan’s touching tale of how dementia-stricken Harry holds onto love and dreams.

The Assembly, George Square, Gordon Aikman Theatre August 12-25