Seven-year-old Cherry Campbell from Glasgow won the title role after island-wide auditions on Lewis, the production’s base. Casting directors wanted energy and mischief, Campbell, whose grandmother still lives on Lewis, delivered both. Gail Watson and Kenneth Harvey play her parents running the island’s shop-post office, Annie Louise Ross and Barbara Rafferty supply dueling grannies, and Finlay Macmillan completes the family as irritating little brother Liam. Filming stayed on Lewis, with Tolsta Chaolais doubling as Struay’s main street, crofts at Tabost, and beaches at Dal Mor and Shawbost standing in for the fictional Inner-Hebridean isle Mairi Hedderwick drew in her picture books.
Scripts came from a five-writer room led by Sergio Casci and Stuart Hepburn. They story-lined together to keep the tone consistent across 39 quarter-hour episodes shot between 2013 and 2015. Donald Shaw’s folk-tinged score, released as a download in 2016, threads accordion and whistle through each adventure. A Gaelic dub, Ceitidh Mòrag, launched on BBC Alba two months after the English-language CBeebies premiere, giving the Outer Hebrides a rare television economy boost and a new generation their first on-screen heroine who speaks like them.
Production Details
CBeebies / 2 Seasons / 39 Episodes / 2013
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Showrunner(s): Lindy Cameron, Robbie Allen, Henrietta Hurford-Jones
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Producer(s): Margaret Matheson
Main Cast
Cherry Campbell as Katie Morag
Gail Watson as Isobel McColl
Kenneth Harvey as Peter McColl
Angus Peter Campbell as Neilly Beag
Annie Louise Ross as Grannie Island
Barbara Rafferty as Grandma Mainland
Finlay Macmillan as Liam McColl
