Remote Scottish Post Office features in Murder Island – New Channel 4 TV Mystery

• Isle of Gigha is setting for Ian Rankin’s new mystery whodunnit

• A Postmaster is one of the suspects

The remote Scottish Isle of Gigha was transformed into the setting for Channel Four’s new pioneering TV series, Murder Island, with four teams of amateur detectives trying to solve a whodunnit.

Made by STV Studios, the series starts today (5/10) at 9.30pm after the Great British Bake Off.

Isle of Gigha Post Office and store plays a central role in the mystery, written by world-renowned crime novelist, Ian Rankin. One of the eight suspects, played by actors, is the Postmaster.

The six-part series is based around a twist-filled murder plot which will see members of the public take on the role of detective and enter into a murder mystery investigation. They have one nail-biting week to compete to find out if they’ve got what it takes to solve a murder.

Scripted filming took place at the Post Office with actors answering the amateur detective’s questions about the gruesome murder, possible suspects and motives.

The sleuths also often popped in to speak with real-life Postmaster Joe Teale and his wife, Hannah, who also works in the shop, to tap into their local knowledge of the island.

To ensure that the residents of this remote, southern-most Hebridean island, could still get provisions and Post Office services, the production had to allow the shop and Post Office to open for set hours each day, so that the community were not inconvenienced.

Isle of Gigha Postmaster, Joe Teale, said: “We had to ensure that the shop could still serve the community. There was lots of filming here. On one particular night there was filming at the Post Office and outside until 1am in the morning, with lots of action going on. They had huge amounts of lighting, so it looked like it was actually filmed during the day.”

The population of the island nearly doubled when filming took place with the ten actors, teams of wannabe detectives and production crew.

The rugged beauty of the island attracts tourists, but the Isle of Gigha, which means God’s island could not accommodate everyone, even with the island’s hotel and holiday lets. So, 42 camper vans had to come over by boat from the mainland, along with supplies to build a police station for the ‘detectives’ briefings.

Joe said: “Under normal circumstances the island would have been able to accommodate everyone, but this was filming during Covid restrictions and there had to be social distancing. It wasn’t families and couples coming over – it was more than 100 individuals who came across. It was not enough for them to have separate rooms, they all had to have their own bathrooms!

“When Ian Rankin wrote the story based on a remote Scottish island, he didn’t specifically have the Isle of Gigha in mind, but we have more facilities than many islands, some great buildings and beautiful landscape to provide an interesting setting for filming.

“There has been a buzz on the island since we heard that filming was going to take place and chatter amongst the islanders about the murder mystery. We have not seen the series ahead of time so people are wondering which parts of our island will be shown and who they may recognise. The Isle of Gigha community still don’t know who the ‘murderer’ was. We will have to watch the series, like everyone else to find out.”