Isobel Pulls It Off

Isobel Sutherland has a good week, and Hamish cannot stand it. The village reporter breaks a story big enough to put her in the big league, gets herself a fresh image to go with it, and acquires a new boyfriend into the bargain. The boyfriend is new and, from the village's point of view, suspiciously presentable. The story itself is the real one, and Hamish knows it; his problem is that Isobel is doing rather well without him. Hamish, who has been quietly assuming Isobel would always be there, is left squirming with jealousy and immediately decides the whole thing is suspicious.

He investigates, which is his way of sulking. And the village, meanwhile, is in the grip of lottery fever, with the Editor, the Young Crofter and the Old Crofter all caught up in the general excitement. The lottery fever grips everyone equally, which is to say everyone except Hamish, who has other things to brood about. Isobel's rapid rise is the talk of every corner of Lochdubh, and most of the talk reaches Hamish.

Dominic Minghella wrote the episode, Mandie Fletcher directed, and it aired in April 1996. Shirley Henderson makes Isobel's transformation convincing enough that you almost forgive Hamish his pettiness, and Robert McIntosh appears as the Editor, with Alan Tall and Johnny Irving as the two crofters. Billy Riddoch, Stuart Davids and Iain McColl's Neil the Bus keep the village busy, while Stuart McGugan and Anne Lacey appear as Barney and Esme, watching the drama with the village's usual mixture of delight and disapproval. Robert Carlyle does his best work here in the small moments, the glances and deflections that give the jealousy away.

The episode is a comedy of jealousy disguised as a news story, and it knows exactly how far to push both. It is a light episode, but it gives Shirley Henderson some of her best scenes in the role, and Hamish learning to share the stage is good for him, even if he never quite admits it.