Ask yourself what’s meant by Scottish drama and a definition isn’t hard to come by. It means stories dealing with Scottish society and history, subjects which in turn encompass everything from our landscape to our key industries. If you admit to a belief in Scottish exceptionalism, it may extend to a very particular and unique world view too.

Want examples of such stories? Think Trainspotting or Orphans. Black Watch or The Slab Boys. Lament For Sheku Bayoh or Ane Pleasant Satyre Of The Thrie Estaitis. Those last four are plays, by the way. Scottish theatre is exceptionally good at this and always has been.

Ask yourself what’s meant by BBC Scotland drama, however, and things become trickier. Today, it’s easier to say what it isn’t. For example it is not content made using actors dressed in period costume. Although the form is popular and the Scottish literary canon is stuffed to the gunwales with novels which would require stays and frock coats, some years have passed since BBC Scotland took on the task of adapting works like Kidnapped, Sunset Song or The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde.

Another thing BBC Scotland drama is not is big budget. At least in the way of, say, Netflix hit The Crown, or six-part supernatural chiller The Rig, which was shot at the nine-acre FirstStage Studios complex in Edinburgh’s Leith district and was the first Amazon Original production to be made entirely in Scotland. Not that its cultural and geographical specificity necessarily made it a hard sell for a streamer with a global audience. Speaking to Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee in 2022, Amazon Original executive Georgia Brown told MPs: “I think The Rig will prove to the world that shows can go out that are hyperlocal.” She wasn’t wrong. It was a hit. Season two is incoming.

What do we get instead from BBC Scotland? Another, different, John Rebus. More cops and robbers only this time in Shetland. A drama set on a submarine (Vigil). A drama set on a train which had most viewers yearning for a bus replacement service by episode three (especially enticing if that bus was driven by Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves as in Speed, the high octane movie Nightsleeper was inevitably compared to).

What else do we get? Budget cuts across the board........

© Herald Scotland