It’s lights, camera... inaction on a Scots film studio

ArrIvInG this weekend at Platform One is the world premiere of Trainspotting 2, after months of secrecy. Security is so tight that even ewan McGregor admits he hasn’t seen the finished film.

Twenty-one years ago, I saw the original in more relaxed, less glamorous circumstances – a multiplex on a Midlands industrial estate, two months before its february release.

As a child reporter, I remember being excited by its energy and dark wit and dazzled by the bold way it showed how very full an empty life could be. However, when a group of us gathered for coffee, our most trenchant reviewer opined that Trainspotting showed promise but could never be a hit.

The drugs stuff was risky, no one really knew the stars and there would be walkouts when moviegoers heard uncompromising Scottish accents.

This is why critics do not become film studio bosses.

Trainspotting became the second biggest British movie of all time, just behind four Weddings and a funeral, and its cinematic high changed the conversation about Scotland on film.

Up until then, we had the low-key bittersweetness of Bill forsyth, the skirl of a Braveheart or rob roy and a ton of movies about Glasgow hard men. Billy Connolly stood on a movie set and told me that Sean Connery was no longer our biggest export.

‘We need a more modern Scotland. We need more from the boys from Trainspotting,’ he said, ironically while dressed as John Brown.

At film festivals I got quizzed about Le Trainspotting by french students, one of whom thought that a special make-up must have been applied to make everyone look so pale.

even those who felt queasy about the subject matter had to acknowledge that Trainspotting put Britpack cinema on the map.

The Secretary of State for Scotland at the time was Michael forsyth, who seemed to grasp the economic possibilities and pushed for increased movie funds and support. yet 21 years on, we’re back in the doldrums.

Could a Scottish studio be the shot in the arm for a Scollywood?

An application for land to build a privately funded Scottish studio awaits a decision from the Scottish Government, although Pentland Studios have been reluctant to talk to the Press and its plans don’t shed much light on why a busy studio complex must be sited on a notorious traffic bottleneck, uprooting a tenant farmer. Maybe the Straiton plan will I COULDN’T be more delighted that Theresa May has managed to do a trade deal with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Bill English. When my sister emigrated there she couldn’t get a job as a primary school teacher immediately, so she went to work for Mr English instead.

I once asked if this was a big change for her. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot of nagging him about homework and reminding him to polish his shoes.’ be approved, maybe it won’t. In any case, it doesn’t fix all that ails filmmaking in Scotland. That requires a much bigger plan – training crews, retaining talent and fighting off competition from studios in Ireland, Wales and england.

This would need an aggressive film agency charged with producing results, not blame-shifting reports. Above all, it needs willpower. Why does Wales have a doctor Who studio complex? Because showrunner russell T davies actively wanted to film there. Why has Outlander converted a Cumbernauld shed into studios? Because the production was determined to shoot in Scotland.

This is Trainspotting country, not field of dreams. If they build it, they still may not come.

We need film-makers who choose Scotland, choose our dodgy weather but magnificent scenery, choose an underdeveloped but willing film sector and choose to put down roots, rather than skip off to the Czech republic if the exchange rate looks more favourable.