View to a kilt: the TV that shaped Scotland
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Version 0 of 1. Judging by the hashtag #TakeUsWithYouScotland, some voters in the rest of the UK now view the land north of the Wall as a potentially austerity-free paradise. The Nicola Sturgeon surge is undeniable, but things are more nuanced than that sudden SNP gold paint job all over Scotland’s Westminster seat map suggests. No-one, though, would deny there’s a sense of reenergised political engagement in Scotland, a new spring in our national step. But it hasn’t always been thus. Take it from someone who lives here. For decades, we could be brought low by a single phrase from a TV continuity announcer: “Except for viewers in Scotland.” In a pre-multichannel age, the consequence of squeezing local programming from BBC Scotland and Scottish Television (STV) into the schedules made it feel like we must be missing out, a deep psychic fear perhaps best explained by this terrific Armando Iannucci sketch. Now I’m starting to think that being exposed to the sort of homegrown shows that never made it south of the Border TV region might have been the very making of us. It would be an absurdly sweeping statement to say the programmes listed below shaped the very psyche of Scotland. But in the spirit of our new national self-belief, I am strongly implying it. Weir’s Way Tom Weir is a beloved Scottish icon, a compact, doughty rambler in a red hat who yomped the far-flung reaches of Scotland for Weir’s Way, a long-running STV travelogue initially broadcast in 1976. Weir’s knowledge of both natural and social history painted a deeply nuanced portrait of non-urban Scotland, and he spotlighted her vanishing ways of life by talking to the people he met on his way. Redeployed as a late-night STV schedule filler in the 1990s, Weir’s Way imprinted its wistful, heartfelt portrayal of an almost mythical Scotland onto another generation of viewers – mostly ones not long back from the pub or club – who couldn’t help but be hypnotised by its breathtaking views and tremulous soundtrack. Dòtaman These days, Scottish Gaelic programming has its own dedicated digital fiefdom in the form of BBC Alba. But before 2008, Gaelic language shows were simply slotted into the daytime schedules, so unwary viewers might not realise they were watching Padraig Post instead of Postman Pat until the theme tune lyrics kicked in. Thanks to the expressive enthusiasm of presenter Donnie Macleod, the pre-school-targeted Dòtaman transcended language barriers and hooked even non-fluent viewers, although it felt rather a swizz there was never any sign of the superhero seemingly promised by the title. (It actually translates as “spinning top”.) River City It’s not an official condition of potential nationhood that you produce your own domestic soap opera, but perhaps it should be. In Wales, Pobol y Cym recently celebrated its 40th year on air. River City, the BBC Scotland soap set in the fictional Glasgow district of Shieldinch, is a relative stripling, having only started in 2002. But with love squabbles on its cobbles, a pub that gets blown up every couple of years and a long-standing cult character in the form of Shellsuit Bob, it has found an appreciative audience outside its home country on iPlayer, and provides a useful corrective to the outdated soap stereotype that every Scottish-accented character has to be a gangster. Limmy’s Show! Comedy is a sketchy business, but it remains a mystery why the three series and one special of Brian Limond’s BBC Scotland-produced show never made it to the national network when other, perhaps more stereotypically Scottish shows were permitted to establish a beachhead on BBC3. But fans of Limmy’s precisely calibrated, flawlessly performed and often deeply unsettling existential comedy found it on iPlayer, or through his Vines, or after following him on Twitter. Since BBC3 is due for some radical downsizing, maybe Limmy – a product of modern Scotland, and a suitably complex ambassador for it – dodged a bullet. Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century A full two decades before Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss won worldwide acclaim for modernising Sherlock Holmes, STV did it first. In partnership with international animation specialists DiC (a collaboration that also produced the bizarre soccer-themed cartoon Hurricanes) STV conceived a truly mindbending update for the world’s greatest detective, apparently as influenced by the Sylvester Stallone movie Demolition Man as the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Holmes is zapped back to life in the 22nd century by Inspector Beth Lestrade and a robodroid Watson in order to save New London from a resurrected Moriarty. Now that’s forward thinking. |