West Coast Story

Hamish Macbeth's money troubles drive him to a decision no Highland bobby should have to make: he agrees to appear in the Lochdubh amateur production of West Side Story. He has been having financial difficulties, the sort that make a man look at a bank manager with fresh suspicion, and Rory Campbell's bailout comes with strings attached. Hamish sets out to expose the local bank manager's hypocrisy, finds himself short of cash, and gets bailed out by Rory. The price of the loan is a role in the show, and there is no renegotiating with Rory. Nobody is entirely sure how he came to agree, least of all Hamish himself. West Side Story in Lochdubh is a contradiction in terms, and the contradiction is the joke.

And the musical turns out to have more in common with village life than anyone expected. The romantic tangles on stage echo the ones off it, and nobody in the cast is safe from the comparison. The production is the usual village affair, all piano and hope and very little rehearsal. Watching a West Side Story cast in a Highland village hall is a pleasure that needs no further explanation, and the parallels give the episode a gentle edge beneath the fun.

Brian Elsley wrote it, Ian Knox directed, and it aired in April 1995. Robert Carlyle carries the singing, or possibly just the pretending, with visible good humour. Muireann Kelly appears as Janice, Ken Drury as Cameron Dicks, Rab Christie as Jimmy Soutar and Alex Norton as Duncan Soutar, with Brian Pettifer's Rory extracting his pound of flesh and Ralph Riach's TV John never far from the action. Jimmy Yuill, Duncan Duff and Stuart Davids complete the village roster, Doc Brown included. It is the rare episode built entirely around the village having fun at itself, and the cast clearly enjoys the joke.

It is a small, warm episode about money and pride, and the terrible bargains people strike for both. The bank manager gets his comeuppance, the show goes on, and Hamish learns once again that in Lochdubh nothing is ever free.