Colin MacDonald’s most recent radio play was five-part drama-documentary Pretender Prince, BBC Radio 4. Narrated by Jack Lowden, the series tells the tragic story of the rise and fall of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the 1745 Jacobite rebellion.
Colin’s short film Survivor was screened at the Inverness Film Festival in 2025 and was broadcast on BBC Alba on New Year’s Day 2026 in Scottish Gaelic. The film covers the long-lasting effects of The Iolaire Disaster in 1919, in which 201 men returning home from the First World War were killed when the HMY Iolaire sank as it was arriving in Stornoway. The film was funded by the Imperial War Museum and the Iolaire Trust.
Colin’s epic five-part true crime audio drama An Eye For A Killing, narrated by Jack Lowden, and telling the gripping story of Burke and Hare was included in the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2024 Shortlist for Best Original Series or Serial.
Colin has adapted all six Shardlake books, the successful historical mystery novels by C J Sansom, for BBC Radio 4. Colin also adapted R L Stevenson’s Weir of Hermiston for BBC Radio 4, starring Phyllis Logan and Jack Lowden.
He is currently writing screenplay Mr Mac and Me, based on the novel by Esther Freud, for Wislocki Films.
Feature films scripts include Ivanhoe, Close and Some Kid.
Colin’s credits for television include Sharpe’s Honour and Blue Murder, as well as three single films for BBC One: The Dunroamin Rising, The Gift and The Wreck On the Highway. He has also written for Heartbeat, Doctor Finlay, Casualty and Para Hardy.
A prolific writer for radio, his credits for BBC Radio 4 include: The Penalty, The Whole Of The Moon (two series), The Bones Boys, Killing The Butterfly, Hill of Rains, Hossack’s Child, The Colour of Summer and Calum’s Road starring Ian McDiarmid and Bryan Dick. Stage plays include The Gowk Storm (Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh), The Bones Boys (Oran Mor, Glasgow) and The Heart of Saturday Night (Theatre PKF at The Traverse, Edinburgh).
Colin MacDonald is represented by Frances Arnold