MINE'S A LARGE STIFF ONE

Ahoy boys. Today’s Scotland on Sunday reports that the long-awaited £10m remake of the Ealing Studio classic, Whisky Galore! has run aground – yet again. This time the excuses range from uncertainty over tax breaks to anti-Scottish casting. Apparently writer/producer Peter MacDougall is raging about the proposed stars, saying, ‘the list had five Sirs and not a single fucking Scottish actor’. Nicely put, Peter.

He’s got a point though. When names like Steve Coogan and Ricky Gervais are talked up as ‘big in America’ it only confirms the delusion of London film lovies because Steve and Ricky are about as recognisable to American audiences as clootie dumpling. Besides, at an alleged £10 million budget, it doesn’t sound like Hollywood’s chipping in, so why worry? Did the makers of the original give a toss about cracking the States? I doubt it. They just wanted to make an enjoyable movie that did okay business on its home turf, which is about as much as we can hope for any film made in this country.

Whenever I read about British C-list slebs trying their luck in Hollywood, I can’t help but cringe on their behalf, in the same way I feel embarrassed at the thought of Tessa Jowell out in LA, trying to flog the new film tax regime to a bunch of moguls who really don’t give a toss.

Where Mr MacDougall’s argument falls down is in thinking that Whisky Galore! was a Scottish film in the first place. It wasn’t. It might have been based on a story set in Barra and it was filmed there with a few token Scottish actors but it took a London-based film company to make it and a London-based distributor to put it in cinemas. So what’s new?

The virtue of the original was its simplicity and small scale, relying more on stunning scenery and wry humour than on ‘starry’ actors, be they Robbie Coltrane, Brian Cox or their English below-the-radar equivalents. In fact, why are the makers bothering? Do they really think they can improve on the original? How can Mr MacDougall's script ever top Compton MacKenzie and Angus MacPhail's? And why do they need 10 million quid anyway when the 1949 version was probably shot for 40 guineas? Unless it’s to cover the producer’s tab at the Castlebay Bar.

Sounds like this one’s going the way of the SS Politician…