Irvine Welsh

Welsh’s film announcement - May 04
It was announced at Cannes that Irvine Welsh is to start work on a new film.

The cult writer is planning to modernise the story of nineteenth century grave robbers, Burke and Hare. The film will be named The Meat Trade and is to focus on robbers who steal organs for sale on the global transplant market. Unsurprisingly, Robert Carlyle will star.

Irving Welsh hits home - 22/08/03
Edinburgh born writer Irving Welsh is to climb into the boxing ring for charity.

He is going to be promoting The Be. Foundation, which says around three young people commit suicide every day in the UK and Ireland. Eighty per cent of those suicides are by young men who are believed to find it more difficult to ask for help.

Irving is the patron of this foundation and he said ’It is the saddest thing in the world to be at the funeral of someone who has committed suicide. The truth is that nobody copes with all the pressures and demands that life makes on us all the time and we have to explode the macho myths surrounding this problem."

And so the boxing match. They are planning to hold it early next year, and are hoping to recruit other celebrities for a four and a half minute bout. Irving said ’The boxing ring is the loneliest place in the world. It’s probably the closest that somebody like myself will get to understanding the sort of fear and despair that many people go through. Boxing is also a great way to reach young people."

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Irvine Welsh to direct hooligan movie - 19/05/03
Edinburgh born author Irvine Welsh is to direct his first movie - based on a book about football hooliganism.

Soul Crew is described as a "high energy, violent drama" Welsh, has written the script for the film, and is due to start shooting later this year.

His bestseller Trainspotting was turned into a box office hit but this will be Irvine’s first time behind the camera himself.

Welsh’s column! - 27/02/03
Edinburgh born author Irvine Welsh is to become a columnist for the Daily Telegraph, as part of an £8 million revamp of its image.

The Trainspotting and Porno writer is hoping to attract a younger audience to the broadsheet, when he begins his culture column every Monday.

Irvine Walsh quitting Scotland? - 25/11/02
Writer Irvine is said to be on the verge of quitting Scotland after being offered a job in the U.S - teaching American students the finer art of talking Scottish!

44 year-old Walsh is very popular in the States - he has given a few readings already and each time students were queuing around the block to get in to hear him - the first reading attracted over 850 people!

Columbia College in Chicago has offered him a prestigious post as a writer-in-residence. Randall Albers (chairman of fiction writing at the college) has said that although he hasn’t told the students that Irvine may be coming, but he knows they’ll go wild when they hear the news. ’His classes will be so over-subscribed’