In your own words, what's Kidnapped about?

Richard: It's a rollercoaster adventure set in 18th Century Scotland, with a great central hero, a dashing Highland hero, dastardly villains and amazing landscapes. But then we would say that, wouldn't we!

Bev: It's all about an orphaned Scottish boy named Davie Balfour who discovers he is due to inherit a great country estate. However, his wicked uncle already lives there and isn't very keen to give it up, so he arranges for Davie to be sent to the New World aboard a slave ship. Luckily, he then meets Alan Breck – a Highland resistance fighter on the run from the English. They form a close bond and set off on all sorts of hijinks, with Davie determined to reclaim the land that belongs to him.

How did you get involved as the writers?

Bev: Well, it all happened as a result of a completely different script we'd been working on – a fun-packed period drama about the court of James I.

Richard: We were hoping to see it turned into a film, and our intention was to write a very unstuffy historical piece, with fast-paced scenes and gutsy action set pieces. That film never came into being unfortunately, but the script came to the attention of the BBC, who had been thinking of making a new, quite modern feeling version of Kidnapped. Our script's irreverent tone struck a chord with them, and we were asked to come on board.

How did your take on the story differ from previous adaptations?

Richard: The major difference concerns the character of Alan Breck. Now, in previous adaptations it's always been him, not Davie Balfour, who gets the screen time.

Bev: Being a wonderfully charismatic, exciting, romantic figure, he sort of hijacks proceedings, so the actual story of a young boy's journey is lost and it just becomes the Alan Breck show.

Richard: This happened with the 1971 movie version with Michael Caine as Breck. That was really the Michael Caine show.

Bev: So we wanted to get away from that, and make it a more faithful adaptation by restoring Davie Balfour to his rightful place as the real hero. That said, you can't please some purists out there. We had one letter from a viewer complaining the film wasn't in Gaelic.

Did you get a say in the casting of the film?

Richard: Actually we weren't really very closely involved in the casting side of things. Our script was basically sent out to a number of agents, and then the producers mull over the various possibilities, get the actors to come in and read a few scenes, and then select the best ones for the job. We were extremely pleased when Iain Glen landed the role of Alan Breck. Glen is such a great Scottish actor, with a long pedigree including some quite major films like Kingdom of Heaven and Lara Croft, and he really nailed the part of Breck.

Bev: He really didn't put an eyebrow wrong, and he also gave us a helpful suggestion regarding the end of the film. We'd originally wanted to put a climactic caption mentioning that Scotland had finally become independent with devolution in 1998 – but Glen told us quite bluntly that this would annoy many Scots who didn't consider it proper independence at all. So we hastily withdrew that caption!

Was it actually filmed in Scotland?

Bev: No, the production took place in New Zealand in 2004. Thanks to Lord of the Rings, New Zealand had become a much sought-after location and the rates had gone up, but it was still a good deal cheaper than filming in Scotland – or anywhere in Europe for that matter. It took some getting used to for us, as we were sat here in England while the film was made several thousand miles away.

Richard: The time difference meant we'd wake up to emails from the director requesting script revisions that had to be done by the end of the day, and it was often a mad rush to get it all done. If it wasn't for the invention of email I'm not sure how we'd have coped, actually.