Gaelic drama goes international with The Island TV series

Sorcha Groundsell plays police family liaison officer Kat Crichton in new BBC murder mystery series An t-Eilean, which was filmed on Lewis and Harris (Picture: Black Camel Pictures/BBCAlba/John Maher)Sorcha Groundsell plays police family liaison officer Kat Crichton in new BBC murder mystery series An t-Eilean, which was filmed on Lewis and Harris (Picture: Black Camel Pictures/BBCAlba/John Maher)
Sorcha Groundsell plays police family liaison officer Kat Crichton in new BBC murder mystery series An t-Eilean, which was filmed on Lewis and Harris (Picture: Black Camel Pictures/BBCAlba/John Maher)
A landmark in Scottish broadcasting has been passed with the screening of the first ever high-end Gaelic drama series.

An t-Eilean (The Island), which is set in the Western Isles, has been produced for the BBC and has already been sold for broadcast in the United States, Australia, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway. It follows in the international footsteps of successful northern European drama, watched around the world with subtitles.

The four-part Scottish series is described as a tense, twisting story of lies, loss and long-buried secrets set against the elemental backdrop of the Hebrides. Leading actress Sorcha Groundsell plays Kat Crichton, a young police family liaison officer, who is assigned by her boss, DCI Ahmed Halim, to a murder investigation on Lewis and Harris, islands from which she fled ten years previously.

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Speaking about the series Sorcha Groundsell said: “I think this is the perfect time to make a drama like this, a high-end Gaelic drama, both because there is such passion for the language and the culture reemerging within the community and also because there’s an open mindedness, in the world now, to foreign language dramas, to cultures that are not necessarily perceived as mainstream.

“I think there is an appetite for stories and an art that is providing a different viewpoint, and I think that is inherent in Gaelic storytelling, and will be inherent in Gaelic drama, too.”

An t-Eilean is funded by MG ALBA, All3Media International, Screen Scotland and Black Camel Pictures. The BAFTA award-winning Glasgow headquartered Black Camel Pictures was founded by Arabella Page Croft and Kieran Parker, and is one of Scotland’s leading drama production companies.

It is excellent that An t-Eilean has been made in Scotland, however it should give everybody cause to wonder why it has taken so long to produce a high-end Gaelic drama series. After all, television was invented by the Scot John Logie Baird nearly a century ago and the first BBC television drama was aired in 1930.

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In contrast, the first Welsh-language TV drama was the soap opera Pobol y Cwm, which first aired on BBC Wales in 1974 and the first Irish language drama on Irish TV was Ros na Rún, which first aired on RTÉ One in 1996.

It has taken too long for the first ever high-end Gaelic drama to produced, just as it has taken too long for the Scottish screen sector generally to flourish.

In recent years the direction of travel for film and TV production in Scotland has been positive with sector already worth £568 million to the economy with the aim for it to break through the £1 billion mark by 2030.

Increasing television production in Scotland has only really been possible with pressure on UK public service broadcasters to do more. That is why there are rules relating to commissioning, spending and employment in Scotland and these rules are supposed to be effectively policed by media watchdog OFCOM.

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Sadly there are growing reports that call into question whether the letter and spirit of the rules are being followed. That is why I have asked to meet with the BBC and OFCOM.

An t-Eilean can be viewed on BBC Alba as well as BBC4, with the four 50-minute episodes also available to stream online via BBC iPlayer.

Angus Robertson is the SNP MSP for Edinburgh Central and Constitution, External Affairs and Culture Secretary

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