{"id":39369,"date":"2025-07-25T00:49:46","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T00:49:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo4.dedicatedhost247.com\/news\/trainspotting-sequel-needed-a-trigger-warning-to-protect-its-contents-celebrity-news-showbiz-tv\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T00:49:46","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T00:49:46","slug":"trainspotting-sequel-needed-a-trigger-warning-to-protect-its-contents-celebrity-news-showbiz-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo4.dedicatedhost247.com\/news\/trainspotting-sequel-needed-a-trigger-warning-to-protect-its-contents-celebrity-news-showbiz-tv\/","title":{"rendered":"Trainspotting sequel needed a trigger warning to protect its contents | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"Irvine<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

Irvine Welsh photographed at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate (Image: Lorne Campbell \/ Guzelian)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Irvine Welsh\u2019s brilliant new book Men In Love contains an afterword as shocking as anything the Trainspotting author has ever written \u2013 a trigger warning! \u201cAs a novel set in the 1980s, many of the characters\u2026 express themselves in ways that we now consider offensive and discriminatory,\u201d informs the author\u2019s note.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t worry, this isn\u2019t some sort of woke sell-out by the Caledonian literary bad boy whose pitch-black (and expletive-filled) 1993 debut about Edinburgh junkies helped define the decade and went on to sell millions of copies and inspire twoiconic films.<\/p>\n

\u201cF*** no,\u201d splutters Irvine. \u201cBasically it\u2019s in there to stop the book being chopped to bits, to keep everything there. It\u2019s either that or lose a lot of the content. The argument now is that, with the internet, everything\u2019s taken out of context.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you can have a line from a book and everybody who won\u2019t read it will see that and go, \u2018Oh, this guy is f*****, he\u2019s a monster!\u2019. My view is that the novel provides context. The fact it\u2019s a work of fiction, the fact it\u2019s set in the Eighties, should be all the context you need.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I have to put this basic toilet-training, self-evident thing in, you know, \u2018It\u2019s fiction, people did converse like that and some still do in certain places. I\u2019m not condoning it, I\u2019m not condemning it, it\u2019s not my place to do either, I\u2019m just writing it\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can almost feel Irvine\u2019s frustration, as he continues: \u201cWhen I started out, publishers encouraged you to be as controversial as possible. Now they encourage you to be as least controversial as you can! It\u2019s the times we live in and, generally, the times are driven by conservatism and uniformity.\u201d<\/p>\n

There has nonetheless been huge anticipation for Men In Love \u2013 his 15th novel, testament to his ferocious work ethic \u2013 which was published last week and the 66-year-old poet laureate of the chemical generation has been one of the stars of this weekend\u2019s Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival 2025 in the stunning spa town of Harrogate, where we are talking before his sold-out event with Crime Novel of the Year winner and fellow Scot Abir Mukherjee.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Theakston<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

Welsh was one of the star authors at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival (Image: Harrogate International Festivals)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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His presence at the world\u2019s best-known crime-writing gathering, supported by the Sunday Express, is explained by his \u201cCrime\u201d trilogy, featuring troubled cop Ray Lennox, which began in 2008 and concluded last year with Resolution. It has been adapted by Irvine and his regular collaborator Dean Cavanagh into an award-winning TV drama starring Dougray Scott.<\/p>\n

But while he previously returned to Trainspotting characters Renton, Sick Boy, Begbie and Spud in Porno, Skag Boys and Dead Men\u2019s Trousers, Men In Love takes place immediately after Trainspotting \u2013 making it a true sequel and explaining excitement among fans.<\/p>\n

Having ripped off his erstwhile friends over a drug deal, Renton is hiding out in Amsterdam, trying to build a career as a club night producer, while Sick Boy is in London, hovering around the edges of porn and prostitution, Spud is falling in love and Begbie, naturally, is in prison.<\/p>\n

The first time around they chose life \u2013 this time it\u2019s love, with Welsh exploring what happens when young men start to have serious relationships. \u201cI always write about these characters \u2013 sketches, notes, scenes \u2013 because they help me explain the world and its changes,\u201d continues Irvine. \u201cSo I\u2019ve built up a lot of material on them over the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I need a reason to publish. I need to be exploring some kind of theme. With Trainspotting, it was how do people get involved in the heroin scene? Skag Boys is the same thing. Porno was about the growth of online porn and trying to explore how that affects people\u2019s lives. And then the Dead Men\u2019s Trousers was about me getting involved in [psychedelic drug] DMT to see what would happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Famously explicit in his work, which often sees his characters getting into embarrassing scrapes, sexual or otherwise, Irvine admits to the occasional twinge of anxiety about what friends or family will think about his writing.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think, \u2018F*** me, what are they going to think of me?\u2019. And that\u2019s a great feeling,\u201d he smiles. \u201cIt\u2019s an uncomfortable feeling. Paradoxically, it\u2019s also a fabulous feeling because I\u2019m not comfortable unless I\u2019m uncomfortable! It\u2019s not working unless I\u2019m squirming thinking about this. So I very rarely cut or sensor or modify anything.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Trainspotting<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

Iconic Trainspotting movie poster from 1996 (Image: UGC)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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This time he found himself thinking about love, in part because \u201cwe\u2019re living in a world that seems to be so full of hate and poison\u201d. \u201cBecause of the way the world is, the division of labour, capitalism and industrialisation, we get serious about romance in our twenties,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think, \u2018I\u2019ve got to make all these decisions about marriage, about cohabitation, about children, about houses, about work and careers\u2019. All the things essentially get in the way of that romance.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you\u2019re not equipped, emotionally, to make these decisions. But it\u2019s almostpushed on you by society and by your own internal drives. So these guys are falling in love for the first time, seriously. They\u2019re trying to get serious at that time in their life where their partner rather than their peer group or their parents becomes the most significant other in their lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s embarking on this kind of strange quest that you\u2019re not really equipped to do. And these guys are even less equipped than anybody because they\u2019ve got this history of f****** up.\u201d As usual with Irvine, who travels to Miami after Hogmanay where he spends several months writing every year, the darkness is leavened with a dry humour.<\/p>\n

While Renton, the role that made Ewan McGregor a global star, will always be at the heart of the books, Simon \u201cSick Boy\u201d Williamson, played on screen by Jonny Lee Miller, is the \u201cdominant character\u201d in Men In Love, according to Irvine, who quotes Scottish Peter Pan creator J M Barrie who memorably said: \u201cThere are few more impressive sights in the world than a Scotsman on the make.\u201d Sick Boy is planning a society wedding as part of his \u201caspirational game plan\u201d to become rich. \u201cHe\u2019s the hustler in London, he has his gameplan, he wants to assimilate, not into middle-class society but into upper middle class,\u201d he chuckles.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wants a lot but, while he might crave success, that\u2019s less important to him than taking part in the game. It\u2019s the whole chase, the whole kind of thriller, putting himself out on the edge.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Ewan<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

Ewan McGregor as Mark ‘Rentboy’ Renton in Trainspotting (Image: BFI\/Channel 4\/Figment Films)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Bizarrely, Irvine believes his female readers have a strange kind of fascination with Sick Boy, who gets many of the book\u2019s best and funniest lines, mostly unrepeatable here, because they\u2019ve all met men like him. “They\u2019ve all gone out with somebody who\u2019s treated them badly, and has been quite selfish and narcissistic in that way,” he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo they\u2019re absolutely fascinated by this character, and while they\u2019re quite repelled, they still feel like, \u2018F***, I\u2019ve been taken for a mug by a guy like this before, but I still kind of like him, I\u2019m rooting for him in a strange way\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the author himself, does he particularly associate with one of his most famous characters? \u201cEvery character you write is part of you, even if it\u2019s a repressed part,\u201d he suggests. \u201cYou\u2019re doing it on the basis of observation, using other people, using friends and using people you\u2019re close to. But you\u2019re also using bits of yourself all the time. They\u2019re parts of me from different times of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the writing, he explains: \u201cI sit down and suddenly they start to tell me what they are doing. That\u2019s a good thing for a writer, because they write the book for you. You don\u2019t really have to think too much, your subconscious is doing all the heavy lifting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just to keep things interesting, the part-time DJ has also recorded a companion soul disco album to the novel, featuring among others, Shaun Escoffery, who played Mustafa in the long-running West End production of Disney\u2019s The Lion King.<\/p>\n

Today, asked if Trainspotting will be the book he is remembered for in years and decades to come, Irvine says: \u201cI would love to hope not, but it\u2019s not going to be thecase though. I mean, it\u2019s funny. You get to a point where you think it\u2019s kind of in the pantheon now.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Irvine<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

behind the decks at a music festival (Image: Redferns)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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He adds that having written a lot of books is like \u201chaving a whole bunch of children and you love them all equally, or you pretend to love them equally\u201d.<\/p>\n

But he is also very aware of the opportunities Trainspotting has given him, saying: \u201cIt\u2019s been a fabulous launch pad. It\u2019sgiven me a forum and an audience, and a level of success I wouldn\u2019t have had without it probably.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a writer, you want to write, basically, you wanna be able to do what I\u2019m doing. You know I\u2019ve been so lucky that I\u2019ve been able to do this for 30 years \u2013 and that\u2019s because of Trainspotting.\u201d<\/p>\n