A SECOND series of the BBC's most expensive Gaelic TV drama has been confirmed as the show will return with a new “gripping” mystery for its lead detective to uncover.
The award-winning An t-Eilean (The Island), which cost more than £1 million per episode to make, is set to return with filming to start this spring, the BBC has announced.
The four-part thriller from BBC Alba centred around a murder investigation and starred Lewis-born Sorcha Groundsell and Harrow-born Sagar Radia.
The show was the BBC's first Gaelic language crime drama and was filmed in Lewis, Harris, and Glasgow, and was critically acclaimed after it was aired early last year.
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The new series will see Groundsell return in the lead role of Det Sgt Kat Crichton and opens with her frustrated both at work and home, caring for her ill father and dealing with petty local crime.
However, when the body of a young woman is washed up, Crichton is thrust into the hunt for a killer stalking the islands.
As the investigation deepens, it uncovers the hidden lives and devastating secrets of the community’s young people, forcing Kat to confront both the case and her own complicated ties to the place she calls home.
When her former nemesis, Ruaraidh MacLean, played by Sam James Smith, now running the local youth group, shares his suspicion that there are other missing young islanders, he finds himself drawn back into Crichton’s world as the case tightens around those closest to home.
What follows is a terrifying and twisted game that leads them into a world of unexpected and chilling corruption in the hunt for a serial killer.
Produced by Black Camel Pictures, filming is expected to start soon and will largely be done on location in the Western Isles.
Bill MacLeod, commissioning editor of BBC Alba, said the channel was delighted to recommission the show.
He said: “An t-Eilean will once again transport viewers to one of the most dramatic landscapes in the world with a taut and twisty story that will keep them on the edge of their seats until the final few frames.”
Arabella Page Croft, executive producer at Black Camel Pictures, said it was “simply fantastic” to be working on a second series.
She added: “We can't wait to get going with this brand-new gripping Hebridean mystery and thrilling tale with DS Kat Crichton at the helm.”
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David Smith, director of Screen Scotland, added: “An t-Eilean delivered Gaelic drama to the world for the first time and has reached further than we could ever have anticipated.
“Series two will be another step forward, and while Screen Scotland rarely funds second or subsequent series An t-Eilean has such cultural significance that we have been able to support it.”
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