Hamish Macbeth

Hamish Macbeth is a Scottish mystery comedy-drama television series produced by BBC Scotland that aired from 26 March 1995 to 4 May 1997. It is loosely based on a series of mystery novels by M. C. Beaton (Marion Chesney). The series concerns a local police officer, Constable Hamish Macbeth, in the fictitious town of Lochdubh on the west coast of Scotland. The title character was played by Robert Carlyle. It consisted of three series, with the first two series containing six episodes and the third containing eight. The series was released on DVD in the United Kingdom and the United States in 2005 and 2006 respectively, with the exception of the first series episode ‘West Coast Story’. This was due to rights issues surrounding the episode's extensive use of excerpts from the 1961 film West Side Story. In September 2023 the series was made permanently available on BBC iPlayer. Like the DVD release, ‘West Coast Story’ is not on iPlayer. Synopsis Hamish Macbeth, a police constable in the Northern Constabulary, accompanied by his dog, a West Highland Terrier named Wee Jock (later another West Highland Terrier called Jock following Wee Jock's death), keeps the peace in the small town of Lochdubh (pronounced with the guttural 'ch' sound, LoCH-DOO). Macbeth does this in his own way, without undue reliance on the letter of the law and with every intention of avoiding being promoted out of what is his ideal job. He strongly dislikes involvement from Inverness police, and sometimes his main work doesn't seem to be the capture of local very petty criminals but to keep them away from prison and penalties.