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Edinburgh Live
Edinburgh Live
Entertainment
Katie Williams

Edinburgh-set Trainspotting spin off starring Begbie 'will happen eventually'

Trainspotting fans rejoice because a new spin off TV series could be coming.

According to Robert Carlyle, a new series about the about infamous character Begbie and his antics is reportedly in the works.

Begbie is the violent loose cannon in Trainspotting, who can turn on anyone at any moment.

The actor, who played Begbie in the 1996 cult classic, and 2017 sequel, confirmed that talks of a series are ''in its early moments' to NME, but added that 'it's looking pretty good that this will happen eventually'.

Based on Irvine Welsh's 2016 novel 'The Blade Artist', the TV show would focus Begbie's new found life after his Trainspotting days.

In the novel Begbie is a reformed and rechristened Jim Francis, living in California with his wife and two daughters

Speaking to NME while promoting the second season of his Sky drama Cobra, Carlyle, who made his first appearance as Begbie in 1996, said: “Irvine [Welsh] and myself have been chatting quite a lot recently with a couple of excellent producers in London about [continuing the Trainspotting story].

The actor continued: "I think we’re thinking about doing it as six one-hour ‘television event piece’, as they say nowadays - 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."

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