Trainspotting might be Irvine Welsh's most famous book, spawning an iconic movie (as follow-up Porno inspired the sequel), but several of his novels have served as the source material for films. Now it looks like we might see another make the jump, this time based on Begbie-focused tome The Blade Artist.
According to Begbie himself – or at least Robert Carlyle, who has played the character so memorably – Welsh and the actor have been having discussions with producers about continuing Begbie's misadventures on screen, albeit TV this time.
As you know there was another book called The Blade Artist which is just entirely about Begbie and his mad story. It’s still in its early moments but it’s looking pretty good that this will happen eventually," he tells the NME.
If it does go ahead, the story would chronicle the character both past and present. In the book, Begbie is reformed and rechristened Jim Francis, living in California with his wife and two daughters.
"I think we’re thinking about doing it as six one-hour 'television event piece', as they say nowadays," Carlyle continues. “Whatever that means. But it seemed to me to be right to look at it like that, and Irvine loved that idea. It’s such a massive story – it’s all Los Angeles back and forth to Edinburgh – and it’s difficult to do all that in an hour and a half! Especially if you want to keep the basis of that book pure. I think nowadays people like the event thing too – they like 'six hours of this... bang.’ They can boxset it. They can binge it. So after a few chats we thought that’s the way forward. So that’s the plan. Sometime in the next year and a bit we’ll hopefully be talking again and we’ll be talking about the return of Begbie." For more from Carlyle, head to NME.
There's certainly fertile ground to be found in Begbie's unpredictable ways, so we'll wait and see if something comes of this. Carlyle, meanwhile, will be back on the telly in COBRA series 2, titled COBRA: Cyberwar, due on Sky Max on 15 October.