Island life

Island life


By Michael Pickard
January 17, 2025

IN FOCUS

An t-Eilean (The Island) star Sorcha Groundsell and executive producer Arabella Page Croft reflect on making the BBC Alba series – the UK’s first ever high-end Gaelic-language drama – set against the backdrop of the Western Isles of Scotland.

An t-Eilean (The Island) is the story of a young police officer assigned to investigate a murder on the Western Isles of Scotland, where she grew up and subsequently fled a decade ago.

Following its launch on BBC Alba and BBC iPlayer this week, the four-part series is also the UK’s first ever high-end Gaelic-language drama, with a budget of £1m (US$1.22m) per episode.

Sorcha Groundsell (His Dark Materials, Shetland) leads the majority Gaelic-speaking cast as Kat Crichton, a family liaison officer who is sent by her boss, DCI Ahmed Halim (Industry’s Sagar Radia), to the island of Lewis and Harris, where the locals are reeling from a murder.

At first, the brutal slaying of the wife of local tycoon Sir Douglas Maclean (Iain Macrae) at a remote island mansion seems to be part of a botched burglary. But Kat has 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 involved.

Kat is then drawn into the tangled web of the Maclean family – including grown-up children Eilidh (Sinéad MacInnes), Calum (Andrew Macinnes), Sinè (Meredith Brook) and Ruaraidh (Sam James Smith) – while also confronting her own troubled past in the place she used to call home.

Sagar Radia and Sorcha Groundsell  in An t-Eilean (The Island)

The central figure in a story about lies, loss and long-buried secrets, Kat is someone who carries a lot of baggage from her past, says Groundsell. “She’s had to put a lot of effort into rebuilding herself in Inverness after she left the island and, as a result of that, she has a lot of things to work through when she returns home,” the actor explains.

“She’s very hard-working and driven, and has a level of bravery, really, in facing those demons that I kind of admire. But she also has some downsides, as all humans do.”

That meant the character proved to be a “fascinating” role for the actor. “Playing someone with that much drive and that much simmering beneath the surface, rage, in a way, was really incredibly satisfying,” she continues. “It was a lot of fun to play.”

It was the chance to work in Gaelic, however, that particularly attracted Groundsell to the project. She grew up on Lewis and Harris and attended a Gaelic-speaking school, before moving to Glasgow, were she was able to continue her Gaelic education. “So my whole life has been in Gaelic,” she says. “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.”

Working in the language on set was “wonderful… but it has been a challenge,” she says, revealing that many of the cast felt some pressure relating to their levels of fluency. “But 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, so we have to push through and we have to reconnect, to keep it alive and to keep it breathing.” She adds: “Even if it’s not perfect, use it or lose it.”

Groundsell on location with director Tom Sullivan

In fact, Groundsell continues, it’s “high time” a high-end Gaelic-language drama was produced on the scale of The Island – and time to take ownership of the language and the culture.

“There’s been a real resurgence of commitment to Gaelic from speakers and from organisations and community leaders to really amplify Gaelic as a language and remind people that it’s an incredible language, and it’s a source of amazing cultural value,” she adds.

“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 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.”

Backed by distributor All3Media International and with funding from MG Alba and Screen Scotland, The Island comes from producer Black Camel Pictures, which recently adapted BBC Radio 4’s Nordic crime podcast Annika Stranded for UKTV’s U&Alibi. Starring Nicola Walker, who reprises her title role from the audio series on screen, the series shifted the story from Oslo to Glasgow, while the title character would memorably break the fourth wall to discuss her latest case with the audience.

“At Black Camel, we always love doing something different and we have a history of making all sorts of things, from musicals to horror films, queer content to marine detective shows and kids dramas. So pivoting is a super skill we have developed to survive and thrive in Scotland,” says the company’s co-founder and series executive producer Arabella Page Croft. “We were all quite excited by the challenge to develop and create a show in Gaelic and felt it was just the right way to explore this particular crime story.”

Set and filmed on the island of Lewis and Harris, the show features stunning scenery

But it was the co-writing partnership between Scottish writer Nick Osborne and Gaelic writer Patsi Mackenzie that anchored the piece in language and location. The series isn’t entirely filmed in Gaelic, however: English also appears, as the writers sought to authentically reflect the way islanders actually speak, and what might happen in the real world if an English-speaking investigating team arrived.

As a result, “we aimed for a 70/30% in Gaelic favour and that felt balanced,” Croft says. “We spend time with the Gaelic-speaking family, and the police investigation is about 30% of the show and that was the English part. We trust the audience agrees this feels a natural way to show how the language is used in real life. I hope everyone feels we did get this right.”

Cast and crew spent five weeks together in Harris to film The Island, using locations including Amhuinnsuidhe Castle, Huisinis Beach and the medieval church of St Clements at Rodel. That they stayed on the island for the duration also helped to keep expenditure down, despite the record-breaking spend on the show.

“‘Come to Amhuinnsuidhe Castle and stay for five weeks’ – that’s how we made the show on the budget,” Croft reveals. “This kept the travel time and budget manageable and meant everyone enjoyed this fabulous shoot in a glorious location and also were accommodated in the same place. We couldn’t have travelled the cast and crew in and out from [island capital] Stornoway each day – we’d never have made the schedule. It was a brilliant decision that enabled us to give the show the scale we wanted.”

An t-Eilean (The Island) had a budget of £1m per episode

Meanwhile, it was the task of casting directors Simone Pereira Hind and Anna Dawson to find Gaelic-speaking actors to populate the series, with Groundsell, Macrae, MacInnes, Brook, Macinnes and Smith among them.

They were then supported on set by Irish director Tom Sullivan (Arracht), who speaks Irish Gaelic (Gaeilge) and could help bring out the nuanced and naturalistic performances the producers were after. There were also some Gaelic speakers among the crew, the majority of whom were Scottish. One exception is the composer, Icelandic musician Biggi Hilmars.

“As it turns out, Gaelic talent runs deep,” Croft says. “We in Scotland [in commissioning and in producing] must continue to create opportunities to bring it to the surface and highlight who is out there.”

In fact, it was an open casting call on social media that asked, ‘Do you speak Gaelic, do you like to perform?,’ leading to enquiries from some “exceptional young Gaelic-speaking talent.” Not all of them could appear in the series, “but if we get to make a second season of An t-Eilean,” the producer adds, “we will be telling a young story so we can highlight the new generation and young people who can act.”

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