I’m going back to island of my roots to make a movie.. and aye can’t wait Newsreader
Lost for words after film offer
Siobhan Synnot
It was late in the afternoon when STV anchorman John MacKay spotted a message alert from his Facebook page, the go-to site for fans of Scotland Tonight.
For once, however, this was not a message about one of the many stories John has covered as one of Scotland’s best-known news presenters, nor a comment about that day’s suit or tie.
It was an approach by an American movie producer wanting to know if he was the same John MacKay who had written a book called The Road Dance. And if so – would he mind if they turned it into a film?
Jim Kreuzer, who runs Sheridan Road Productions with his partner Maryilene Blondell, had stumbled across John’s 2002 novel while working on the award-winning golf drama Tommy’s Honour in Scotland.
The Road Dance is a very different story – a heartbreaking period drama about a woman and her newborn child facing love, shame and tragedy on the Isle of Lewis at the start of World War I.
Sheridan Road’s producers reckoned John’s book had the power to capture a worldwide movie audience and asked to meet up.
“Jim must have thought I was monosyllabic,” said the STV journalist. “I was so stunned because this came completely out of the blue. All I could say during the conversation was ‘aye’.”
“So when they said they wanted to make The Road Dance into a movie, I just said ‘aye’.”
The book reflects John’s own Gaelic roots – his mother Cathie was from Lewis and his father Alex was born in Glasgow to Hebridean parents.
Summers were spent at his grandmother’s house in Carloway on Lewis and, back home in Hillington, Glasgow, John’s pals knew better than to ask the sports- daft Scot, brought up in the Free Church of Scotland, to play football on a Sunday.
John loved wandering the cliffs and shores of Lewis as well as listening to friends and family tales of the island hardship, fishing tragedies, disease and young men sent to fight in remote wars.
Twenty years ago the birth of his first child meant John and wife Joyce spent more time close to home and it was then he decided to turn some of the dramatic stories he’d heard into a novel, written during breaks between work and childcare.
Encouraged by Joyce, he sent the manuscript to Scottish publishers Luath and went on to write two more, Heartland and The Last of the Line, all set on the Isle of Lewis.
He may be more familiar with Holyrood than Hollywood but now John is set to join the movie cast when filming begins on Lewis this week.
Sheridan Productions’ Maryilene was determined to move as soon as lockdown eased up enough to start filming and signed up Star Wars and Mission Impossible rising star Hermione Corfield to play the main role of Kirsty. Scottish actress Morven Christie
I was so stunned this because of the came out l I could blue.. al say was ‘aye’
has also been cast as Kirsty’s mother. The quick- witted tel ly newsman isn’t often lost for words but seeing his first novel become a movie goes beyond his wildest dreams, especially after an earlier attempt failed.
Years ago, when the book had become a Scottish bestsel ler, actor-director David Hayman sought him out and suggested The Road Dance would make a great night out at the movies – and that he would like to direct it himself.
“A film hadn’t crossed my mind at that point,” said John. “I didn’t have an agent or any experience of the movie world. But I thought, ‘How hard can it be?’ And I bashed out a screenplay.”
The hard bit turned out to be getting the money to shoot a period picture in Scotland.
For more than a decade, Scottish production company Sorbier fought to get The Road Dance onscreen.
“We just couldn’t get the funding,” said John.
“I don’t know why but in the end it has taken an American company to get the money together.”
John’s sons, Kenny and Ross, both have small roles in the film. Scottish Power Pipe Band member Ross is set to play the bagpipes in a key scene.
“The pipes I play were given to me by my grandfather who got them from a World War I veteran from Lewis,” said Ross, proudly.
“I like the idea that they’ll be getting played in a setting very similar to that in which they were first heard.”
And John will also be coming out from
PROPOSAL David Hayman
WRITE ROAD John at launch of his first book, above, in 2002 and, far left, on STV’s Scotland Tonight behind the STV newsdesk, after director Richie Adams invited him to take part in the road dance scene.
He said: “The role of a crofter at a ceilidh is one I’ve been preparing for all my life. I’ve certainly been to plenty.
“Whooping through a Strip The Willow or a Dashing White Sergeant will come very easily to me. Although I may be the one who falls asleep in the corner. I can do either.”
But John, who acted a little at school to meet girls, says that Hollywood may breathe easy.
He added: “I think this will be a one-off for me. My range is limited. Crofter at a cei lidh or newsreader on a TV in the background is about it.”
The laid-back newsman is particularly delighted that the film is being shot on Lewis and will feature Gearrannan Blackhouse Village, close to the Callanish Standing Stones and Carloway Broch.
A key location, it is a chance for movie audiences around the world to see the nine restored traditional thatched cottages which were the last blackhouses to be inhabited in the Western Isles.
“I didn’t insist that the film be shot on Lewis,” said John. “But when the filmmakers went scouting for locations, they were instantly smitten.”
The portrait of island life onscreen was important to the journalist, who made only one request of the filmmakers.
He added: “I did say that I didn’t want the people on the island portrayed as hicks or religious fundamentalists.
“They are good people and I wanted them fairly represented. I’m delighted the producers agreed with me.”
However, he is slightly apprehensive about the weather that awaits when Adams calls “action” on his story.
He said: “There can be times when the weather on Lewis is lovely, while the rest of the country is not having the best time of it. But it is October – so there will be wind. ”
“On the other hand, the crew were all dreading having to meet our midges and I was able to assure them that the film would certainly escape them.”