An t-Eilean is Scotland coming of age

The new detective thriller show An t-Eilean I (The Island) a Black Camel Pictures production for BBC Alba and BBC iPlayer, is a seminal moment in Scottish cultural output. The mini-series is like a mash-up between Wallander and Succession but shot in Lewis not L.A.’s Pacific Palisades.

The show turns reality and precedent on its head. Instead of the fumbling, sterile and tired output we’ve become used to from BBC Scotland, we are given a confident showcase with high-production values, and fine writing and acting.

Gone are the barely concealed cultural cringe of Scottish public broadcasting, which hangs over the nation like a hangover you are forced to pay for, and in its place is an exultant homage to Gaelic culture and the Western Isles na h-Eileanan Siar.  This is the biggest Gaelic drama in Alba’s history and the most expensive series ever made in Gaelic with a budget of a £1 million per episode. Gone is the crippling self-doubt and lack of ambition which is the hallmark of much of BBC Scotland’s output.

The use of music from Icelandic composer Biggi Hilmars shows a degree of confidence that might have been missing before, and the lush design to the intro and credits add to the feeling that someone has had their brochan.

The scenery and landscape rightly steals the show competing with Sorcha Groundsell (His Dark Materials, Shetland, The Innocents) as Kat Crichton, Sagar Radia (HBO-BBC hit drama Industry) as DCI Ahmed Halim, Iain Macrae (Bannan) as local tycoon Sir Douglas Maclean, and, amongst others Sinéad Macinnes (Outlander) as Eilidh Maclean.

We can detect that there are a few things going on that have got us to this unexpected place. I was going to say you’d have been living on a remote island to not have noticed the global phenomenon of Outlander, but that won’t work anymore.  Ronald D Moore’s epic Highland romp starring Sam Heughan, Caitríona Balfe and Sophie Skelton has been such a wild success, that it was inevitable that someone, somewhere would pay attention.

It’s astonishing that it’s taken this long for anyone to have taken this step, but the combination of Player and creative collaborations offers a global reach and the potential of cultural soft power is at play. It has already been sold for broadcast in the United States, Australia, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway. The unlocking of serious funding (was funded by MG Alba, All3Media International, Screen Scotland and Black Camel) opens up a production value that is so rare on Scottish screens.

Critics have pointed out that Crá (also dubbed as part of the new #GaelicNoir) was shown on prime time BBC Northern Ireland (not a Gaelic channel) – and was 99% in Irish, compared to An t-Eilean which is (roughly) 50% in Gaelic. The point has been made that if the model is Scandic (or Welsh) programmes then the whole show is in the native language and the subtitles are for the English-language viewer. Others have suggested that ‘code-switching’ between languages is a natural part of real-world conversation while others see this as capitulation to Gaelic’s perilous status.

This issue was addressed in an interview to the Hollywood Reporter magazine by executive producer Arabella Page Croft, who was asked: 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.”

“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.”

The Reporter added: “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).”

There is perhaps a paradox at play here. While the subplot of Sorcha Groundsell’s character Kat Crichton’s return to the island has a parallel in real-life for the actress, the question is does it have potential to reflect a wider reality?

In an interview 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.”

But if An t-Eilean presents a breakthrough towards the possibility of developing an actual credible infrastructure of writing, acting, directing and production in Scotland – as opposed to the derisory output we have outlined here and here – it cannot sustain a wider claim to be a panacea for Gaelic.

There is a generation (and more) of Kat Crichtons’ displaced and unable to make their homes in the Highlands and Islands due to a catastrophic rural housing crisis, lack of job opportunities and the concentration of money in the hands not just of ‘Sir Douglas Maclean; figures but in a tourism economy.

An t-Eilean is a huge celebration of gaelic culture within Scottish society after decades of hostility from an Anglicised and Unionist mindset, and for that it deserves recognition. This is a cultural and a psychological shift that would have been inconceivable even ten years ago. It is part of a wider process of internal decolonisation process that is taking place, and, largely, has taken place (‘After Britain: the Collapse of British Identity in Scotland‘). In this sense it remains true that  “politics is downstream from culture” and that while this remains a key moment in Scottish cultural production, it is not a solution to a deeper crisis of language, which require the sort of political ambition shown on screen.

Watch on iPlayer HERE.