The BBC Makes Reservations for Gaelic Drama 'The Island' ('An t-Eilean')
Sagar Radia as DCI Ahmed Halim and Sorcha Groundsell as Kat Crichton in 'The Island'
Black Camel Pictures/BBCAlba/John Murdo MacAulay
When BBC Alba, the Gaelic-language offshoot of BBC Scotland, announced the commissioning of The Island (An t-Eilean) in March 2024, it boasted that the series would be the biggest and most high-profile Gaelic drama in the network's (and the country's) history. In the area's finest tradition, the series is a Scottish Noir crime thriller, though this is no ordinary Annika-style crime of the week show. A per-episode budget of £ 1 million may not sound that outlandish (especially compared to The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, whose first 16 episodes cost north of $ 1 billion), but for a crime thriller, and one that's not in English to boot, that's big money.
The resulting series must be worth the expenditure, as BBC One announced in early January 2025 that it was also signing on to air it. Describing it as "a twisting story of lies, loss and long-buried secrets set against the elemental backdrop of the Western Isles of Scotland," the series sounds like it could be picked up by PBS Masterpiece, except for the minor language barrier issue. (Hey, Walter Presents is right there, my friends.)
This will be the biggest show in one of the U.K.'s "endangered" Indigenous languages, but that's part of the point. Anglophiles who love Wales and all things Welsh (or at least watch Welcome to Wrexham) may have heard about the Cymraeg 2050 initiative to gain one million Welsh speakers 400 years after the language was banned. A significant part of the country's success in bringing it back has been producing TV shows in Welsh (or in both Welsh and English) so that the next generation will grow up with it as an essential part of the culture.
Thus far, the Wales project has been more successful than anyone expected and is now being hailed as a model for minority languages trying to make a comeback in the 21st century. It's also produced some pretty great TV. The latest, dual-language Mudtown (Ar y Ffin) was released on iPlayer over New Year's 2025 to rave reviews. Wales' success has already inspired other neighbors to embrace their indigenous languages.
The Irish film Kneecap, for instance, is about a hip-hop band that records in Modern Irish, Gaeilge. It is Ireland's submission for Best International Film at the 2025 Academy Awards. The film is considered somewhat controversial, as Modern Irish has long been associated with the IRA and terrorism. One of its goals is to dispel that stereotype. Scottish Gaelic does not have the same history associated with it, so it's not as big a deal for BBC One to pick the series up as it might have been were this an Irish co-production.
The BBC's picking up The Island and shows like Mudtown shows an embrace of "diversity" most people forget exists in the U.K., one that should be honored by the government's leading public broadcaster. However, it's notable that the BBC does not give these series a lot of linear time. The English version of Mudtown will air weekly on UKTV's network UDrama in 2025; notably, the series does not yet have an American distributor.
That's the next step in bringing back these languages: International distribution. Thus far, BritBox and AMC Networks have brought over a few Welsh series; however, they tend to stick to the English language versions, like Keeping Faith (Un Bore Mercher) and Hidden (Craith), or shows that are only made in English, like A Discovery of Witches or Steeltown Murders. Even when Netflix attempted to dab a toe in the water, picking up Dal y Mellt in 2023, it was renamed Rough Cut, and the English dub was the default.
This is why The Island's big-budget production is also key. As we recently noted, prestige TV is becoming the province of the streaming war winners. As streaming services like Max and Peacock get more desperate, picking up a ready-made prestige TV from overseas to look like it still makes expensive programming becomes more attractive.
The Island (An t-Eilean) debuts on the BBC on Tuesday, January 14, 2025. Sundance Now and AMC+ are co-producing the dual-language Still Waters (Y Golau: Dŵr), and a second season of Rough Cut (Dal y Mellt) has been commissioned.
