An t-Eilean, or: The Island. That is the title of a prestige crime drama set on the Western Isles of Scotland that was launched by the BBC on Tuesday evening on its BBC iPlayer streaming service and BBC Alba, the Scottish Gaelic-language free-to-air channel that the U.K. public service broadcaster co-owns with MG Alba. Alba is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. And An t-Eilean is, according to the networks, the U.K.’s “first-ever high-end Gaelic drama series.”
That also makes it the biggest Gaelic drama in BBC Alba’s history and, according to The Guardian, the most expensive series ever made in Scots Gaelic with a budget of a £1 million ($1.2 million) per episode.
Described as “a tense, twisting story of lies, loss and long-buried secrets,” the series of four 50- minute long episodes stars Sorcha Groundsell (His Dark Materials, Shetland, The Innocents) as Kat Crichton, a Family Liaison Officer who is assigned by her boss, Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Ahmed Halim, portrayed by Sagar Radia (HBO-BBC hit drama Industry) to a murder investigation on Lewis and Harris, a Scottish island that is part of the Outer Hebrides and that she left 10 years ago.
She must investigate the “brutal slaying of the wife of local tycoon Sir Douglas Maclean,” played by Iain Macrae (Bannan), at a remote island mansion, which seems to be part of a botched burglary. “But Kat has past history with Sir Douglas and his wealthy but deeply dysfunctional family and is convinced that, despite having been wounded in the attack himself, the self-made millionaire must somehow be implicated,” according to a synopsis. “Drawn into the tangled web of the Maclean family, with their four grown children, Eilidh (Sinéad Macinnes – Outlander), Calum (Andrew Macinnes), Sìne (Meredith Brook – Bannan) and Ruaraidh (Sam James Smith), Kat must confront her own past – traveling back in time to a lavish New Year party a decade previously where the dark roots of the mystery seem to lie.”
Shot on location, including at Amhuinnsuidhe Castle, a 19th-century private country house now operated as a hotel, An t-Eilean (The Island) is a Black Camel Pictures production for BBC Alba and BBC iPlayer, in association with All3Media International. It was funded by MG Alba, All3Media International, Screen Scotland and Black Camel.
Written by Nicholas Osborne and Patsi Mackenzie, and directed by Tom Sullivan (Arracht), the series was executive produced by Arabella Page Croft and Nicole Fitzpatrick and produced by Kieran Parker and Bjorn Hanson for Black Camel. The music is from Icelandic composer Biggi Hilmars. New episodes of the drama, being distributed globally by All3Media International, debut weekly at 9 p.m. U.K. time on BBC Alba and the BBC iPlayer, where episode 2 is now also already available.
BBC director general Tim Davie has publicly shared his excitement and confidence in the series. The BBC has even mentioned the potential rise of a new genre, Gaelic Noir.
The show’s use of the Gaelic language, translated into English in subtitles, along with English, has been inspired by the success of non-English- language films and series, including the likes of Korean hits Squid Game and Parasite, various Scandinavian series, as well as Welsh-language BBC series, such as Hinterland (Y Gwyll). And younger generations are more accustomed to watching subtitled content thanks to the likes of YouTube and TikTok, also breathing new life into languages that may have in the past not been deemed ready for primetime.
“I wanted to be involved in An t-Eilean primarily to have a chance to work in Gaelic,” Groundsell said in an interview for the show’s press pack. “I’ve never done it before, and it felt like a really great opportunity to kind of revisit this culture and these places that are pretty important to me in my life.”
Asked about your background, she explained: “I spent the first nine years of my life in the Isle of Lewis in an obviously Gaelic-speaking place and at a Gaelic-speaking school and then when I moved to Glasgow and went to the Gaelic school there too, so my whole education has been in Gaelic. My parents are living in the Outer Hebrides now. Our family are from there, so it’s a heritage that feels pretty important in my life. It’s hard to maintain when you live somewhere like London, so this is a perfect opportunity to kind of come home really.”
Sinéad Macinnes echoed that. “I’d never heard of anything being made like this before in Gaelic. It was a really exciting moment. I think anyone you know who speaks Gaelic and acts would want to be a part of this kind of quite historic moment for Gaelic TV. It’s just a really fun story. A lot of people have been saying for years, there needs to be a kind of murder noir set in the Western Isles. It’s like the landscape is just perfect for it.”
Sharing that An t-Eilean is her first Gaelic TV show and her first acting job in Gaelic since she did Gaelic theater at age nine, the actress added: “I was unsure if I was going to be able to do it in Gaelic, but it was amazing because I actually managed it. I think that’s a really nice personal achievement. It’s been a lovely thing to do, from start to finish, to feel like I’ve nurtured that part of myself that doesn’t often get to be nurtured.”
Of course, the series also is a big deal for the broader Gaelic-speaking community. “It feels hugely important and I think it’s high time,” Groundsell said. “I think it is really an inspiring time and a necessary time to really … take ownership of our language and our culture and celebrate it for what it is, which is a source of incredible joy to so many people. I think it’s about time that we really celebrate it.”
Macinnes also described the chance to make Scottish Gaelic drama on such a scale as important. “Internationally, for it to be seen, I think it is really important, especially when, as a culture and as a people, we spent hundreds of years resisting being erased, and so just to be kind of put on a world stage in that way, or global stage,” she said. “I also think it’s really important for this program to have that modern mixture of Gaelic and English, which is the way that, a lot of people speak Gaelic now, definitely including myself. And I think I haven’t really seen that yet.”
And Macrae highlighted that Gaelic drama from Scotland has not been attempted at this scale before. “I think it’s time that Gaelic drama was given a wider platform than it’s had up till now, and it’s had fairly limited exposure until now, but I think it’s important for the rest of the world, if you can put it that way, to see that Gaelic drama is valid,” he argued. “We have good stories to tell. We have good actors, good standard of acting. We have a good director. In this case, we have a good team, good photographic team, good camera work. We’ve got all the attributes that are needed in any drama, and we should be able to compete in the same way as any other nation.”
Why does the series also incorporate English? “We researched this, and it was naturalistic for the incoming senior police investigating team to speak English, so we leaned into what was authentic and what might happen in the real world should a crime of this magnitude happen,” explained executive producer Arabella Page Croft. “We aimed for a 70/30 percent Gaelic favor, and that felt balanced. We spend time with the Gaelic-speaking family, and the police investigation is about 30 percent of the show, and that was the English part. We trust the audience agrees this feels natural way to how the language is used in real life.”
Groundsell shared that shooting the series mostly in Gaelic did also come with some difficulties though. “It’s been really wonderful working in Gaelic, but it has been a challenge, I think, for those of us who are not the Gaelic old school, as it’s something that we struggle to use in our day-to-day lives,” the star explained. “A lot of us don’t have primarily Gaelic-speaking families, and so I think a lot of us are feeling some pressure about our levels of fluency.”
Not that this would have kept her from An t-Eilean (The Island). “If anything, that makes it all the more important to participate in a show like this, because, if we all maintain this feeling that our Gaelic is never good enough and it’s never good enough to use, no one will ever have a chance to use Gaelic,” Groundsell concluded. “So we have to push through, and we have to reconnect, to keep it alive and to keep it breathing.”
English (US) ·