Irvine Welsh

Irvine Welsh

Irvine Welsh, the highly acclaimed, yet equally as controversial writer of novels, stories, plays and screenplays held a riotous Meet the Author session in The Arms Hotel as part of Listowel Writer's Week.

Welsh, who comes from Edinburgh, Scotland, but lives with his American wife, Elizabeth, mainly in Dublin, though he also has a place in Miami Beach, Florida, for when the weather gets a little too Irish, was in rare form and held the audience in the palm of his hand. They laughed, damn near cried and when it was all over just about begged for more.

Welsh exploded on the literary circuit in 1993 with the publication of Trainspotting, his first novel. Fame came first and notoriety quickly followed with The Observer describing the book as "the fastest-selling and most shoplifted novel in British publishing history." Three years after the book caused a stir in literary circles, the movie launched Welsh into the stratosphere. The 1996 Danny Boyle directed Trainspotting, was an instant box-office hit going on to gross in excess of 70 million dollars at the box office - not bad for a little Scottish film with an estimated budget of 3.5 million dollars. It made Ewan McGregor and Robert Carlyle, the film's actors, into stars and probably made everyone involved an awful lot of money.

So given that Welsh now had a fistful of dollars it must have been hard to retain that edgy, distinctive voice of his, a voice from the mean streets of Edinburgh. But retain it he most certainly has.

Reading from his upcoming collection of short stories, If You Liked School, You'll Love Work, his first collection since The Acid House which was released in 1994, his distinctive voice was never in doubt. The work is hilariously funny, horrifically crude and pure Welsh - with the notable exception that none of the book's five tales are set in Edinburgh.

There is, however, one story set in Scotland, in Fife, from which he read at length. The hero, Jason King, is an ex-jockey, a stalker and his life revolves around Subbuteo table football and the jodhpurs of Jenny Cahill. Welsh is obviously a writer, but his talent for the stage and acting seems to have been shoved into the back room of his consciousness only breaking out at readings such as this. He brought the story to life adopting accents, idiosyncrasies and idiotic gestures as he spoke first for Jason King, then for his father and then for each of the story's characters in turn.

If you're a fan of Irvine Welsh then the opportunity to see him in the flesh was something not to be missed. And his reading proved him a master of the shorter form, a brilliant storyteller, quite an actor and - unarguably - one of the funniest and filthiest writers in Britain.