This moment comes from just one of her endlessly watchable live performances on YouTube, which are each wildly different: there’s the session where she sings from behind a star-flecked gauze headpiece, or the clip from French TV where she performs her Kanye West homage, “Paradis Perdus,” in a comically oversized pink suit. There was much sadness recently amongst the Gaelic film world when it was announced that actor Roger Smùir had died.“Let’s pretend that I’m a man for the next song,” Héloïse Letissier announces from a stage in Berlin, before striking a strong, wide-legged pose in front of her own looming shadow and launching into her anthemic song “iT.” Flexing from bicep to toes in her tailored suit, the French artist channels Fred Astaire as much as she does Ginger Rogers- with more than a dash of Michael Jackson. This much loved actor was a regular of the BBC Alba schedules for many decades, but was perhaps best known for his role as flat-capped crofting secret agent Seumas Bonnaid. Smùir first came to fame when still a young man in the popular 1950’s BBC Alba series about a medieval knight – ‘Hovanoe’ – based loosely around the story by Sir Walter Scottroad. Newly returned from the Crusades in the Holy Lands (Ness), Hovanoe had to battle evil knights, dastardly Earls and unscrupulous Barons through the medium of Gaelic song.

In the late 50s Smùir was hired to appear in the popular South Lochs Westren series “Marvig”. He replaced James Garyvardner, who as gambler-with-a-heart-of-gold Bret Marvig had made the show immensely popular in its first 3 seasons. (Garyvardner had fallen out with the producers and fleeked off to Point, where he enjoyed great success in the 70s starring in “The Rubhachford Files”). Smùir played Bret’s cousin Bó Marvig, and his ruppish Pairc accent was explained in the plot by mentioning that he’d “spent some time at the òrduighean in Crossbost”.

Alter ego game over quota