Radio Lochdubh

The pirate radio station broadcasting to Lochdubh has the whole village listening, and Hamish has been turning a deaf ear to it, which is his way of approving. The station has a remarkable influence on the town, and Hamish has decided, sensibly, that what he cannot hear cannot trouble him. Pirate radio is supposed to be a young man's game, but Lochdubh has adopted it like a stray dog. Then the official radio authority sends a detector van to hunt the transmitter down, and Hamish is caught between his duty and his instinct that the station does the village more good than harm.

The conflict is a lovely little trap. Nobody in Lochdubh wants the station silenced, Hamish least of all. But the law is the law, and the detector van is circling. The authority's man is all procedure and paperwork, and he has no idea what he has walked into. The van prowls the roads while the village finds the whole business hilarious, which is not the reaction the authority was hoping for. The episode sets the authority's smug machinery against the village's stubborn loyalty, and the result is a warm, funny standoff with a decent tune playing underneath it. The Incredible Fling Band appear as the Celidh Band, which explains where the music comes from.

Daniel Boyle wrote it, Nicholas Renton directed, and it aired in April 1996. Robert Carlyle plays the conflict with his usual deftness, doing as little as possible while achieving a great deal, and Shirley Henderson's Isobel shares a quiet moment with him away from the main business. Brian Alexander is Jubel McBean, Stuart Davids plays Lachie McCrae Jr., Valerie Gogan's Alex Maclean looks on, Hugh Munro and Margery Withers are Hector and Jean McNeil, with Stuart McGugan and Billy Riddoch in fine form.

It is a small episode with a big heart. The detector van loses, the station plays on, and everybody in the village pretends they never heard a thing. It is the kind of episode that makes you miss the days when radio felt like mischief, and it wears its nostalgia lightly.