Being Stanley Baxter

In the 1970s and 1980s, TV stars didn’t shine any brighter than Stanley Baxter. His big-budget TV specials brought massive audiences and awards, while on stage, he was Scotland’s most beloved panto dame. Stanley’s elaborate sketches and film parodies, in which he did impressions of everyone from Judy Garland to the Queen, were innovative and risque, and earned him a reputation for the best legs on television.

Born in Glasgow in 1926, Stanley performed on stage from the age of seven. His mother encouraged him to do impressions of the biggest movie stars of the day. During National Service in the far east, he performed with the Combined Services Entertainment and returned home to join the Citizens repertory company for three years before starring in Scotland’s biggest pantomimes and variety shows.

In the 1950s, he moved to London to star in TV revue and films before returning to Scotland to make his own TV series. Long before Billy Connolly and Kevin Bridges, he put Glaswegian patter on the map with his famous Parliamo Glasgow sketches. London Weekend Television came calling, and he was given the freedom to create his big-budget TV spectaculars which made him one of the biggest TV stars of the day. But Stanley was a very big star with a very big secret. While professionally, he lived in the spotlight, privately, he lived in the shadows as a gay man.

Stanley’s passion in life was to entertain, but at a time when homophobia was rife and gay sex was criminal, he believed the only way to succeed in what he loved doing was to live a double life. He walked a tightrope, and his public success hid a life of secrecy and fear.

Made prior to his death in December 2025, the film is a fitting tribute to Stanley’s brilliance. With access to his personal archive and candid audio recordings, we reveal the man behind the public persona of one of Scotland’s biggest superstars. Featuring testimony from famous fans, colleagues, close friends and family, including Mark Gatiss, Alan Cumming, Rory Bremner, Suzy Izzard, Amanda Barrie, Elaine C Smith, Bill Paterson, Alex Norton and Stanley’s sister Alice Dale, speaking for the first time about her famous brother.