Irvine Welsh (born 27 September 1958) is a Scottish novelist and short story writer. His 1993 novel Trainspotting was made into a film of the same name. He has also written plays and screenplays, and directed several short films.
Irvine Welsh was born in Leith, the port area of the Scottish capital Edinburgh.[1][2] He states that he was born in 1958, though according to Glasgow police, his birth record is dated around 1951.[2] When he was four, his family moved to Muirhouse, in Edinburgh, where they stayed in local housing schemes.[3] His mother worked as a waitress. His father was a dock worker in Leith until bad health forced him to stop, after which he became a carpet salesman; he died when Welsh was 25. Welsh left Ainslie Park High School when he was 16 and then completed a City and Guilds course in electrical engineering. He became an apprentice TV repairman until an electric shock persuaded him to move on to a series of other jobs.[3] He left Edinburgh for the London punk scene in 1978, where he played guitar and sang in The Pubic Lice and Stairway 13. A series of arrests for petty crimes and finally a suspended sentence for trashing a North London community centre inspired Welsh to correct his ways. He worked for Hackney Council in London and studied computing with the support of the Manpower Services Commission.[3]
Welsh returned to Edinburgh in the late 1980s, where he worked for the city council in the housing department. He then studied for an MBA at Heriot-Watt University.[4]
Welsh has published eleven novels and four collections of short stories. His first novel, Trainspotting, was published in 1993. Set in the mid-1980s, it uses a series of non-linear and loosely connected short-stories to tell the story of a group of characters tied together by decaying friendships, heroinaddiction and stabs at escape from the oppressive boredom and brutality of their lives in the social housing schemes. It was released to shock and outrage in some circles and great acclaim in others. It was adapted as a play, and a film adaptation, directed by Danny Boyle and written by John Hodge, was released in 1996. Welsh appeared in the film in the minor role of drug dealer Mikey Forrester.
Next, Welsh released The Acid House, a collection of short stories from Rebel Inc., New Writing Scotland and other sources. Many of the stories take place in and around the housing schemes from Trainspotting, and employ many of the same themes; a touch of fantasy is apparent in stories such as The Acid House, where the minds of a baby and a drug user swap bodies, or The Granton Star Cause, where God transforms a man into a fly[4] as punishment for wasting his life. Welsh adapted three of the stories for a later film of the same name, in which he also appeared.
Welsh's third book (and second novel), Marabou Stork Nightmares, alternates between a grim tale of thugs and schemes in sub-working class Scotland and a hallucinatory adventure tale set in South Africa.
His next book, Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance (1996), became his most high-profile work since Trainspotting, released in the wave of publicity surrounding the film. It consists of three unconnected novellas: the first, Lorraine Goes To Livingston, is a bawdy satire of classic British romance novels, the second, Fortune's Always Hiding, is a revenge story involving thalidomide and the third, The Undefeated, is a sly, subtle romance between a young woman dissatisfied with the confines of her suburban life and an aging clubgoer.
A corrupt police officer and his tapeworm served as the narrators for his third novel, Filth (1998). The main character of Filth was a vicious sociopathic policeman. The novel was adapted to a film of the same name in 2013.
Glue (2001) was a return to the locations, themes and episodic form of Trainspotting, telling the stories of four characters spanning several decades in their lives and the bonds that held them together.
Having revisited some of them in passing in Glue, Welsh brought most of the Trainspotting characters back for a sequel, Porno, in 2002. In this book Welsh explores the impact of pornography on the individuals involved in producing it, as well as society as a whole, and the impact of aging and maturity in individuals against their will. The book is set just after the opening of the new Scottish Parliament.[4]
Welsh contributed a novella called Contamination to The Weekenders: Travels in the Heart of Africa. Welsh, Ian Rankin, and Alexander McCall Smith each contributed a short story for the One City compilation published in 2005 in benefit of the One City Trust for social inclusion in Edinburgh. In Crime, Ray Lennox (from Welsh's previous work, Filth) is recovering from a mental breakdown induced by occupational stress and cocaine abuse, and a particularly horrifying child sex murder case back in Edinburgh. The story takes place in Florida.
Welsh's prequel to Trainspotting, titled Skagboys, was published in 2012.[5][6][7] Set in Leith in the early 1980s, it introduces the Trainspotting characters and follows them as they fall into heroin addiction. Given as a series of linked short stories, the book is also interspersed with brief commentaries on contemporary British politics. In particular, the consequences of the destruction of industry in the northern cities are drawn for the young working class. His eighth novel, The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins, was published in May 2014 and his ninth novel titled A Decent Ride was published by Vintage Books in April 2015. The latter work featured the returning character 'Juice' Terry Lawson (previously from Glue).
Welsh's tenth novel, released in April 2016, The Blade Artist, centres around a seemingly rehabilitated Francis Begbie now living in California with a wife and children.[8] It was shortlisted for the Fiction Book of the Year at Saltire Literary Awards 2016.[9]
A sequel to The Blade Artist, entitled Dead Men's Trousers, was released on 29 March 2018, and sees Mark Renton, Sick Boy, and Spud reuniting with Francis Begbie.
In 2021, a TV adaptation of Crime was launched in the UK on BritBox as a six-episode series starring Dougray Scott as detective Lennox. Welsh worked on the project with Dean Cavanagh. This was the first TV adaptation of a book by Welsh.[10] A second six-episode series has since been made and is currently available on ITV and ITVX.
Film and stage
As well as fiction, Irvine Welsh has written several stage plays, including Headstate, You'll Have Had Your Hole, and the musical Blackpool, which featured original songs by Vic Godard of the Subway Sect.
He co-authored Babylon Heights with his screen writing partner Dean Cavanagh. The play premiered in San Francisco at the Exit Theatre and made its European première in Dublin, at The Mill Theatre Dundrum, directed by Graham Cantwell. The plot revolves around the behind-the-scenes antics of a group of Munchkins on the set of The Wizard of Oz. The production included the use of oversized sets with actors of regular stature.
Cavanagh and Welsh have also collaborated on screenplays. The Meat Trade is based on the 19th-century West Port murders. Despite the historical source material, Welsh has set the story in the familiar confines of present-day Edinburgh, with Burke and Hare depicted as brothers who steal human organs to meet the demands of the global transplant market.
Wedding Belles, a film made for Channel 4 that was written by Welsh and Cavanagh, aired at the end of March 2007. The film centres around the lives of four young women, who are played by Michelle Gomez, Shirley Henderson, Shauna MacDonald, and Kathleen McDermot. Wedding Belles was nominated for a Scottish BAFTA and was subsequently sold to TV channels in Canada and Europe.
Welsh has directed several short films for bands. In 2001 he directed a 15-minute film for Gene's song "Is It Over" which is taken from the album Libertine. In 2006 he directed a short film to accompany the track "Atlantic" from Keane's album Under the Iron Sea.
Welsh directed his first short dramatic film, NUTS, which he co-wrote with Cavanagh. The film features Joe McKinney as a man dealing with testicular cancer in post Celtic tiger Ireland. It was released in 2007.
Welsh co-directed "The Right to liberty", a chapter of the documentary film The New Ten Commandments, in 2008.
In 2009 Welsh directed the film Good Arrows (co-directed by Helen Grace). It was written by Welsh and Cavanagh. The film is about a darts player who suffers from depression which causes him to lose his skill.[11]
Sam Leith, writing in the Financial Times, argues that: "Welsh's concerns are with sin and salvation, with the exercise of free will and with the individual soul. He's much more interested in teleology than sociology."[12]
Style
Welsh's novels share characters, giving the feel of a "shared universe" within his writing. For example, characters from Trainspotting make cameo appearances in The Acid House, Marabou Stork Nightmares, Ecstasy, Filth, and slightly larger appearances in Glue, whose characters then appear in Porno.
Like Alasdair Gray before him, Welsh also experiments with typography. In the novel Filth, the tapeworm's internal monologue is imposed over the top of the protagonist's own internal monologue (the worm's host), visibly depicting the tapeworm's voracious appetite, much like the "Climax of Voices" in Gray's novel 1982, Janine.
Personal life
Welsh married Beth Quinn in 2005,[13] and in 2018 announced that they were divorcing.[14] They had lived together in the Lakeview neighbourhood of Chicago, USA,[14] since 2009.[15] Prior to Chicago, he lived in Dublin.[16][17][14] In 2018, he was living in Miami, USA.[14]
In 2022, he married Emma Currie, an actor and sister of Scottish musician Momus.[18][19]
In Welsh's early 20s, he was addicted to heroin for 18 months while playing in punk-rock bands moving between Edinburgh and London.[14]
Trainspotting is a 1996 British black comedy drama film directed by Danny Boyle, and starring Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, Robert Carlyle and Kelly Macdonald in her film debut. Based on the 1993 novel by Irvine Welsh, the film was released in the United Kingdom on 23 February 1996.
Trainspotting is the first novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh, first published in 1993. It takes the form of a collection of short stories, written in either Scots, Scottish English or British English, revolving around various residents of Leith, Edinburgh, who either use heroin, are friends of the core group of heroin users, or engage in destructive activities that are effectively addictions. The novel is set in the late 1980s and has been described by The Sunday Times as "the voice of punk, grown up, grown wiser and grown eloquent". The title is an ironic reference to the characters’ frequenting of the disused Leith Central railway station.
Porno is a novel published in 2002 by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh, the sequel to Trainspotting. The book describes the characters of Trainspotting ten years after the events of the earlier book, as their paths cross again, this time with the pornography business as the backdrop rather than heroin use. A number of characters from Glue make an appearance as well.
John Hodge is a Scottish screenwriter and dramatist from Glasgow, who adapted Irvine Welsh's novel Trainspotting into the script for the film of the same title. His first play Collaborators won the 2012 Olivier Award for Best New Play. His films include Shallow Grave (1994), Trainspotting (1996) A Life Less Ordinary (1997), The Beach (2000), The Final Curtain (2002), and the short film Alien Love Triangle (2002).
Dean Cavanagh is a screenwriter, novelist and Playwright born in Bradford, West Yorkshire. In 1990, at the height of the acid house scene, he founded the club culture magazine Herb Garden and a band with Enzo Annecchini. His electronic music outfit, Glamorous Hooligan, was picked up by Warner Bros. offshoot Arthrob, and in 1996, they released an album, Naked City Soundtrax. Glamorous Hooligan's first album Wasted Youth Club Classics was released by indie label Mass of Black in 1994. Cavanagh has stated that his proudest moment was getting Robert Anton Wilson to guest on one of the tracks. As a musician, he featured on John Peel's Sounds of the Suburbs TV show, in the late 1990s. As a clubland promoter, he ran underground house music, and techno, clubs in Bradford, called Tolerance, before moving on to Leeds, where he promoted the Soundclash club bringing in DJs such as Andrew Weatherall, Alex Patterson, Adrian Sherwood and J. Saul Kane.
Marabou Stork Nightmares is an experimental novel by Irvine Welsh, and his second novel, published in the UK in 1995.
Filth is a 1998 novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh. It was adapted into a 2013 film of the same name, directed by Jon S. Baird with James McAvoy in the lead role. A sequel, Crime, was published in 2008.
Ewen Bremner is a Scottish actor. His roles have included Julien in Julien Donkey-Boy and Daniel "Spud" Murphy in Trainspotting and its 2017 sequel T2 Trainspotting.
Duncan McLean is a Scottish novelist, short story writer, playwright, and editor.
Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy is a 2011 Canadian film adaptation of the short story "The Undefeated" from the best-selling book Ecstasy by Irvine Welsh. Directed by Rob Heydon, the film stars Adam Sinclair as Lloyd Buist, a drug user who smuggles ecstasy from Amsterdam. Kristin Kreuk plays his love interest, Heather Thompson.
Skagboys is a 2012 novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh. It is a prequel to his 1993 novel Trainspotting, and its 2002 sequel Porno. It follows the earlier lives of characters Renton and Sick Boy as they first descend into heroin addiction.
Crime is a 2008 novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh. It is the sequel to his earlier novel, Filth.
Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance is a 1996 collection of three novellas by Irvine Welsh.
How I Fixed My Hair After a Rather Long Journey is Norman Wilwayco's triple Palanca-winning novel, which won in 2002; short story, which won in 2000; and screenplay, which won in 2003. Its original title is in Tagalog: Kung Paano Ko Inayos Ang Buhok Ko Matapos Ang Mahaba-haba Ring Paglalakbay. The book, however, is commonly but unofficially also called Mondomanila due to the success of the film Mondomanila, which is very loosely based on the story. Published in 2005 by Kamias Road's Automatic Writings, the book How I Fixed My Hair After a Rather Long Journey became a critical success, receiving praise for its unflinchingly honest portrayal of life in the slums.
Filth is a 2013 psychological black comedy crime thriller film written and directed by Jon S. Baird, based on Irvine Welsh's 1998 novel Filth. The film was released on 27 September 2013 in Scotland, 4 October 2013 elsewhere in the United Kingdom and in Ireland, and on 30 May 2014 in the United States. It stars James McAvoy, Jamie Bell, and Jim Broadbent.
T2 Trainspotting is a 2017 British black comedy-drama film directed by Danny Boyle and written by John Hodge. Set in and around Edinburgh, Scotland, it is based on characters created by Irvine Welsh in his 1993 novel Trainspotting and its 2002 follow-up Porno. A sequel to Boyle's 1996 film Trainspotting, T2 stars the original ensemble cast, including leads Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, and Robert Carlyle, with Shirley Henderson, James Cosmo, and Kelly Macdonald. The film features a new character, Veronika, played by Anjela Nedyalkova, and includes clips, music, and archive sound from the first film.
The Blade Artist is a 2016 novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh. The story follows on from Welsh's previous novels, Trainspotting and Porno, catching up with Begbie's past and present.
A Decent Ride is a 2015 novel by Irvine Welsh. Welsh returns to his character Terry Lawson, first introduced in Glue, this book taking place a further 10 years after the events of Porno during the 2011 Scottish Hurricane Bawbag. The book's title is a double-entendre on Lawson's sexual prowess, and his job in this novel as a taxi driver.
Dead Men's Trousers is a 2018 novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh. It is a sequel to his earlier books Trainspotting, Porno, Skagboys and The Blade Artist. Set in 2015, it follows the characters Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie as they meet up again as middle-aged men.
Crime is a Scottish crime drama television series, an adaptation of the Irvine Welsh novel of the same name. The 6-episode first series was co-written by Welsh and Dean Cavanagh and broadcast in 2021 on BritBox, later moved in the UK to be available on ITVX. It stars Dougray Scott as the detective Ray Lennox. Scott won an International Emmy Award and a BAFTA in November 2022 for his performance. A second series began filming in Scotland in 2022 and premiered on 21 September 2023 on ITVX.
References
↑ Scottish Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths.
↑ "Good Arrows". IMDb.com. IMDb.com, Inc. Archived from the original on 16 October 2012. Retrieved 29 July 2012.
↑ Sam Leith (14 April 2012). "Life choice". The Financial Times. The Financial Times Limited. Archived from the original on 18 July 2012. Retrieved 29 July 2012.
Berthold Schoene, ed.: The Edinburgh Companion to Irvine Welsh. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010.
Mark Schmitt: British White Trash: Figurations of Tainted Whiteness in the Novels of Irvine Welsh, Niall Griffiths and John King. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2018.
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