The Granton Star Cause will be one part of a feature-length Acid House film trilogy. But Robin Gutch, renegade ’s commissioning editor at C4, is confident that the film does not contravene Independent Television Commission guidelines. “We feel that with a warning about content and language, and in a late-night slot, this is a perfectly defensible piece of broadcasting,” he said.The Granton Star Cause has long been a favourite item on the bill in Irvine Welsh’s live performances of his writing. It is an extremely well- constructed story, lewdly hilarious, but with a serious twist.

“For me,” says Robin Gutch, “it’s a sad story, about unfulfilled expectations and waste.” “The Church people are shocked to see God coming back as one of their own,” says the film’s Scottish director, Paul McGuigan. God appears to Boab as an unkempt, drunken old “mannie” in a rough north Edinburgh pub.
Already, complaints have been heard from a Church of England spokesperson, and from Mary Whitehouse, who has said that the film “will be a blasphemy and a gross offence”. It’s about the worst day in the life of Boab (Stephen McCole), a young Edinburgh ne’er- do-well, who is summarily dropped from his local football team, kicked out of the parental home, dumped by his girlfriend – and meets a contemptuous God. The language is faithful to that of the original story, and to real- life Edinburgh street speech. The Granton Star Cause is based on a short story of the same name, originally published in Welsh’s second book, The Acid House (1994).

It also contains a cameo performance by its screenwriter, Irvine Welsh, the controversial and wildly popular author of Trainspotting which became a smash-hit move in 1996. The film, in the words of its producer, Alex Usborne, will contain “67 fucks, 94 cunts and a dildo”. It will be followed by a banner proclaiming “renegade “, and then by a short film. Tomorrow evening at 11pm, a “strongly-worded” warning will be broadcast on Channel 4. “I would have done my time and could be making one now with Bruce Reynolds [one of the 12 train robbers] in the line-up for the dole.”Making one? “That’s villains’ talk,” jokes Biggs “It means we could be planning another robbery together.”. Does he still harbour a grudge?”There’s no bitterness, but I often think of the way things might have turned out if the Express had gone along with the arrangement,” he says.