Interview with Sorcha Groundsell who plays Kat Crichton in An t-Eilean (The Island) – January 14

PHOTO: Kat (Sorcha Groundsell) (Image: Black Camel Pictures / BBC Alba)

Tell us about your character

I’m playing Kat Crichton, a police officer from the Isle of Harris. She spent 10 years away in Inverness after some drama on the island, and comes back to investigate her former home.

Kat is someone who carries a lot of baggage from her early life. 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, has a lot of things to work through when she returns home. She’s very hard working and driven, and has a kind of level of bravery, really, in facing those demons that I kind of admire, but she also has, you know, some downsides, as all humans do.

She was fascinating to play, actually, really multi layered. And I think playing someone with that much drive and that much simmering beneath the surface, rage, in a way, was really incredibly satisfying. It was a lot of fun to play.

What attracted you to the role?

I wanted to be involved in An t-Eilean primarily to have a chance to work in Gaelic. 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.

Tell us about your background

I grew up in in the Isle of Lewis. Actually, 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.

How did you find working in Gaelic?

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. 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, but I think 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, so we have to push through, and we have to reconnect, to keep it alive and to keep it breathing. That’s the old school argument in the islands. Who’s got the best Gaelic? Some people say Skye. Personally, I’m biased. I would say South Uist, but it’s like all languages, there are regional differences and regional dialects and I think that part of the interesting thing about it, is that the language has developed to fit the community and the culture. Better a broken Gaelic than a locked up Gaelic, so essentially, even if it’s not perfect, use it or lose it.

How important is it to make Gaelic drama on this scale?

It feels hugely important and I think it’s high time. In the Gaelic world, I think, we have been underserved in a lot of ways. We are not given time and government funding and attention in the way that we really should be. And I think it is really an inspiring time and a necessary time to really like 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.

Why now?

It feels like the perfect time to make a Gaelic drama of this size and this scope. I think there’s been a real resurgence of commitment to Gaelic from speakers and from organizations 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. I think 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 also 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.

What was it like filming on Harris?

It was really wonderful filming in Harris. We felt incredibly lucky to have five weeks there. Incredible landscapes, incredible people, such creative value, I think, in really being in the locations that are written in the script, to feel completely embedded in the story, because you were in those places, you’re in that landscape, you’re on those beaches, you’re up those hills. That adds so much texture to the story, but also to all of our performances too, to feel the truth of it as we’re there. And it was also just a really wonderful time. It’s a really, really lovely place to work.

How did you find filming at Amhuinnsuidhe Castle?

Amhuinnsuidhe Castle was a character all of its own. I think in the story, it was a very, very unusual thing, partly, to be living in the location that you’re filming in for five weeks. And the castle itself is, is incredible. I mean, it’s so grand and interesting, and it’s got such a fascinating history. And I think the value that we all got, apart from anything else, from kind of living together, essentially for five weeks, was immeasurable, really. I think it really paved the way for a really enjoyable working experience.

It was really great to be working and living together. I think it could have gone very badly wrong, because you never know who you’re going to be working with. But we’re really lucky with this show, everyone is very much of the same mind, and I think because we’re all sort of Gaels, essentially, that gave us such a fantastic base level of connection that we all got on like a house on fire, and it really facilitated deeper work, I think, to know each other that well and to spend so much time together.

What were the most rewarding moments of the shoot?

I think for me, on a personal level, the most rewarding moments were the time that we got to spend together in Harris. We were incredibly lucky. We all became very fast friends, and that was the perfect entry, I think, to be working in Gaelic. I felt incredibly supported by my cast mates and incredibly welcomed by those who were proper, proper Gaels.

So I have to say that time that we spent on Harris was incredibly rewarding, personally and professionally. And creatively, we had some incredible filming moments and some incredible filming locations.

And some really, really satisfying scenes to do that are pretty unlike anything I’ve had to do at work before, so there was a lot of great, rewarding moments.

What can the audiences expect from An t-Eilean (The Island)?

I think audiences can expect drama and mystery set against incredible backdrops, presented in incredible language.

An t-Eilean (The Island) – the UK’s first ever high-end gaelic drama series is a tense, twisting story of lies, loss and long-buried secrets set against the elemental backdrop of the Western Isles of Scotland.

Sorcha Groundsell (His Dark Materials, Shetland, The Innocents) plays Kat Crichton a young Family Liaison Officer, who is assigned by her boss, DCI Ahmed Halim (Sagar Radia – Industry) to a murder investigation on Lewis and Harris, islands from which she fled ten years previously.

The brutal slaying of the wife of local tycoon Sir Douglas Maclean (Iain Macrae – Bannan), at a remote island mansion, at first 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.

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 – travelling back in time to a lavish New Year party a decade previously where the dark roots of the mystery seem to lie. Soon she is involved a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with Sir Douglas as she struggles both to bring the killer to justice and to exorcise her own personal demons.

For Kat, the return to the island brings home an inescapable truth – on an island an enemy is forever…

An t-Eilean (The Island) is funded by MG ALBA, All3Media International, Screen Scotland and Black Camel Pictures.

An t-Eilean (The Island) – 4 x 50 minutes – is a Black Camel Pictures production for BBC ALBA, and BBC iPlayer, in association with All3Media International. Written by Nicholas Osborne and Patsi Mackenzie, and directed by Tom Sullivan (Arracht), the series is Executive Produced by Arabella Page Croft and Nicole Fitzpatrick and series produced by Kieran Parker and Bjorn Hanson for BAFTA award-winning Black Camel Pictures. Music is by award-winning Icelandic composer Biggi Hilmars. The Commissioning Editor for BBC ALBA is Bill Macleod. The series is being distributed globally by All3Media International, and development of the project was supported by MG ALBA and Screen Scotland.

Watch An t-Eilean (The Island) from Tuesday 14 January on BBC iPlayer below: