Local Hero is a 1983 Scottish comedy-drama film written and directed by Bill Forsyth and starring Peter Riegert, Peter Capaldi, Denis Lawson, Fulton Mackay and Burt Lancaster. Produced by David Puttnam, the film is about an American oil company representative who is sent to the fictional village of Ferness on the west coast of Scotland to purchase the town and surrounding property for his company. For his work on the film, Forsyth won the 1984 BAFTA Award for Best Direction.
Robert Kerr "Rikki" Fulton, OBE was a Scottish comedian and actor best remembered for writing and performing in the long-running BBC Scotland sketch show, Scotch and Wry. He was also known for his appearances as one half of the double act, Francie and Josie, alongside Jack Milroy. Suffering from Alzheimer's disease in his later years, Fulton died in 2004, aged 79.
Claire Patricia Grogan, known professionally as Clare Grogan or sometimes as C. P. Grogan, is a Scottish actress and singer. She is best known as the lead singer of the 1980s new wave music group Altered Images, as well as for supporting roles in the 1981 film Gregory's Girl and the science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf as the first incarnation of Kristine Kochanski.
Gregory's Girl is a 1980 Scottish coming-of-age romantic comedy film written and directed by Bill Forsyth and starring John Gordon Sinclair, Dee Hepburn and Clare Grogan. The film is set in and around a state secondary school in the Abronhill district of Cumbernauld.
William David Forsyth. known as Bill Forsyth, is a Scottish film director and writer known for his films Gregory's Girl (1981), Local Hero (1983) and Comfort and Joy (1984) as well as his adaptation of the Marilynne Robinson novel Housekeeping (1987).
William Tulloch Paterson is a Scottish actor with a career in theatre, film, television and radio. Throughout his career he has appeared regularly in radio drama and provided the narration for a large number of documentaries. He has appeared in films and TV series including Comfort and Joy (1984), Traffik (1989), Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (1986), Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990), Wives and Daughters (1999), Sea of Souls (2004–2007), Amazing Grace (2006), Miss Potter (2006), Little Dorrit (2008), Doctor Who (2010), Outlander (2014), Fleabag (2016–2019), Inside No. 9 (2018), Good Omens (2019), and Brassic (2020). He is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Scottish BAFTAs.
Patrick Gerald Duggan, known professionally as Patrick Malahide, is a British actor of stage and screen. His acting credits include The New Avengers (1976), ITV Playhouse (1977), The Eagle of the Ninth (1977), Sweeney 2 (1978), Comfort and Joy (1984), The Singing Detective (1986), A Month in the Country (1987), Minder (1979–1988), Middlemarch (1994), The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries (1993–1994), Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001), The World Is Not Enough (1999), Brideshead Revisited (film) (2008), The Paradise (2012), Luther (2015–2019), Bridget Jones's Baby (2016), Game of Thrones (2012–2016), and Mortal Engines (2018), The Protégé (2021), and Liaison (2023).
David Patrick O'Hara is a Scottish stage and character actor. A graduate of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London, he is best known to audiences for his numerous supporting roles in high-profile films; including Irishman Stephen in Braveheart, dimwitted mobster Fitzy in The Departed, hitman Mr. X in Wanted, and Albert Runcorn in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1. He portrayed Det. Danny 'Mac' McGregor on The District, and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey on The Tudors.
James Prime is a Scottish musician best known as the keyboard player for rock band Deacon Blue. Prime also lectures at the University of the West of Scotland. Known as a Hammond/piano player, his talents have been sought after by John Martyn, Johnny Hallyday, Phil Cunningham, Eddi Reader and Little Richard..
Alex Norton is a Scottish actor. He is known for his roles as DCI Matt Burke in the STV detective drama series Taggart, Eric Baird in BBC Two sitcom Two Doors Down, DCS Wallace in Extremely Dangerous, Gerard Findlay in Waterloo Road and Eddie in the Renford Rejects. He has also had roles in internationally successful films including Braveheart, Local Hero and Les Misérables.
George Rossi was a Scottish actor, best known for playing Duncan Lennox in The Bill from 1998 to 2003.
Comfort and Joy is the third soundtrack album by British singer-songwriter and guitarist Mark Knopfler, released in 1984 by Vertigo Records. The album contains music composed for the 1984 film Comfort and Joy, written and directed by Bill Forsyth.
Scotland has produced many films, directors and actors.
Laxdale Hall is a 1953 British romantic comedy film directed by John Eldridge and starring Ronald Squire, Kathleen Ryan, Raymond Huntley and Sebastian Shaw, with Prunella Scales and Fulton Mackay in early roles. Released in the U.S. as Scotch on the Rocks, it was adapted from the 1951 novel Laxdale Hall by Eric Linklater.
Robert "Rab" Buchanan is a Scottish former actor, most famous for playing in three films by director Bill Forsyth: That Sinking Feeling (1979), Gregory's Girl (1981) and Comfort and Joy (1984). Buchanan, like other young actors in these films, had come to the notice of Forsyth while at the former Glasgow Youth Theatre. After these films Buchanan quit acting and now works on the technical staff at Tolbooth Theatre in Stirling, Scotland.
Douglas Sannachan is a Scottish actor and film maker most widely known for playing Billy the window cleaner in Gregory's Girl. His famous line was "If I don't see you through the week, I'll see you through a window". He grew up in the Calton area of Glasgow and was a pupil at John Street Secondary School, Glasgow. When he was 16 years old he was the subject of a chapter of a book called The Year of the Child by Bel Mooney.
Housekeeping is a 1987 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Bill Forsyth, starring Christine Lahti, Sara Walker, and Andrea Burchill. Based on Marilynne Robinson's 1980 novel Housekeeping, it is about two young sisters growing up in Idaho in the 1950s. After being abandoned by their mother and raised by elderly relatives, the sisters are looked after by their eccentric aunt whose unconventional and unpredictable ways affect their lives. It was filmed on location in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada. It won two awards at the 1987 Tokyo International Film Festival.
Bob Servant Independent, renamed Bob Servant, is a British television sitcom written and created by Neil Forsyth. The first series of six episodes was broadcast in 2013 on BBC4 and repeated on BBC2 Scotland, starring Brian Cox in the title role and Jonathan Watson in the role of Frank. The show is set in Broughty Ferry, a suburb of Dundee. The second series, renamed Bob Servant, was broadcast in 2014 on BBC1 Scotland and 2015 on BBC4.
Soft Top Hard Shoulder is a 1992 British comedy drama film directed by Stefan Schwartz, produced by Richard Holmes, written by and starring Peter Capaldi and also starring Elaine Collins, Frances Barber, Jeremy Northam, Phyllis Logan and Richard Wilson.
Michael Daley CoulterBSC is a Scottish cinematographer. He achieved prominence for his collaborations with writer-director Bill Forsyth, and went on to work on high-profile films like Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Sense and Sensibility (1995), FairyTale: A True Story (1997), Notting Hill (1999), Mansfield Park, Love Actually (2003), The Bank Job (2008), and The Hustle (2019). He was nominated for an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for his work on Sense and Sensibility. He is a member of the British Society of Cinematographers, and BAFTA Scotland.
