In the autumn of 1773, the English writer Samuel Johnson visits the Hebrides, or Western Isles, off the North-West coast of Scotland. With him are his friend, the Scotsman James Boswell, and his black servant Francis Barber. Staying with a series of hosts, including elderly Jacobite heroine Flora McDonald, Johnson and Boswell encounter traditional Scottish hospitality at first-hand, all the time arguing about politics (and in Boswell's case losing his head over every pretty woman he meets). Meanwhile, Francis and another black servant they encounter provide evidence of the new consciousness emerging in Britain's soon-to-be-independent American colonies.
as Dr Samuel Johnson
as James Boswell
as Lady MacDonald
as Flora McDonald
as Miss Campbell
as Elizabeth McQuarrie
as Captain MacLeod
as Sir Aeneas MacPherson
as Dr Reid
as Coll
as McLeod of Raasay
as Lady MacPherson
as Benjamin
as Joseph
as Caroline MacPherson
