In 1965, after attending the College of Drama in Glasgow (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), Duncan moved to working in the Theatre in Edinburgh, firstly at the Traverse in its original location in James' Court on the Lawnmarket under Jim Haynes.
For a few months he worked with Dennis Main Wilson on a pilot Sit Com for Jimmy Tarbuck by Johnny Speight called To Lucifer a Son.
[2] In 1968, Duncan back to work in his native country, for BBC Scotland, although he still spent "an inordinate amount of time in London" on training courses.
Whilst with them, he was the Assistant Floor Manager on the production of Dr. Finlay's Casebook, which starred Andrew Cruickshank, Bill Simpson and Barbara Mullen.
[8] He directed the Hogmanay Show in December 1981, which traditionally saw out the old year and brought in the new,[9] and in 1982 covered an outside broadcast from the Edinburgh Festival of Benjamin Britten's Noye's Fludde.
The titles included Should we come back to-morrow (with Maurice Roeves) by James Graham and Midnight Feast (with Robert Addie) by Michael Wilcox.
In the one featuring Bonnie Price Charlie's retreat at Derby, the title role was played by a young Alan Rickman in one of his first TV appearances.
Death Call (with Alan Cumming, Julie Graham and John Cairney) The Killing Philosophy (with Sheila Greir and Phillip Dupuy) Cold Blood (with Diane Keen) Hostile Witness (Neil McKinven, Paul Higgans and Robert Carlyle) and Evil Eye (with Jill Gascoine and John Hannah) His other major television contribution in 1985 featured the Scottish folk musicians, The Corries with guests such as Judy Collins, Tom Paxton, Loudon Wainwright III, Lonnie Donegan and The Clancy Brothers with Tommy Makem, in a six-part series he produced and directed, entitled The Corries and Other Folk.
[citation needed] Apart from his Taggart work in 1986, he also directed a televised Scottish Opera performance of Rossini's La cambiale di matrimonio on 9 July 1986.
[17] These were My Mum's a Courgette (with Elaine C Smith) by Janice Halley, Waiting for Elvis by Alex Norton, Stan's First Night (with Gregor Fisher) by Alex Norton, Brainwaves by Anne Marie De Mambro, The Secret of Croftmore (featuring a sixteen-year-old David Tennant) by James Graham and The Macramé Man by Stuart Hepburn, starring Mark MacManus.
[22] 1996 was also the year in which Duncan entered the sphere of directing British soap operas in earnest, beginning with 9 episodes of Channel 4's Liverpool-based Brookside, for Mersey Television.
In early 1999, he directed several instalments of the children's television show Hububb, a vehicle for kids' comic Les Bubb, featuring Elaine C Smith, Ford Keirnon and Greg Hemphill.
In 2002, he made several of the River City soap opera shows for BBC Scotland, "set in a fictional West End area of Glasgow called 'Shieldinch' that, whilst looking authentically Glaswegian, follows the template of Albert Square, complete with local shop, café and pub".
Over time, the village of Beckindale was included more often, the most famous landmark of the early days being The Woolpack public house, which became a social meeting place for many of the characters.