gapingvoid: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards"

incestuous scots

This is a good photo of Alistaire MacKenzie (on the right), my pal Dave's younger brother.

Alistaire is best known as "Archie MacDonald", the former romantic lead in the TV show "Monarch Of The Glen".

This pic is a still from the movie Dave shot just before Young Adam, "The Last Great Wilderness". To save money Dave got his own flesh n' blood to play the lead. Or something.

The Scottish film world is a small one. Alistaire's great high school friend was Andrew MacDonald, the producer of both "Shallow Grave" and "Trainspotting", both which Ewan McGregor starred in. And now Ewan's in Alistaire's brother's film.

I knew Andrew MacDonald vaguely in Edinburgh when I was a teen, though I doubt he'd remember me. Hung out with him and a girl named Scarlet a few times, both who I thought were awfully nice.

There's another, less-known connection between Trainspotting and Young Adam. The editor at Canongate Publishing who "rediscovered" Trocchi, and got him back in circulation after years of being out of print, was a guy called Kevin Williamson. Before he worked at Canongate Kevin had a wee underground literary magazine called 'Rebel Inc.' It was pretty central to the whole "Scottish Beats" literary scene that was doing the rounds in the quality papers a few years ago.

Rebel Inc was the first to discover and publish Irvine Welsh, the writer of Trainspotting.

Alistaire's in LA at the moment, grabbing some acting work. Dave's working on a new film called Asylum, based on the Pat McGrath novel. Sir Ian "Gandalf" McKellan's in it. Kevin, who I've shared whisky with many times, is still in Edinburgh, seriously involved with his own brand of socialist politics. I have no idea what Andrew MacDonald's up to. I saw him in London in the street a few years ago- he looked really busy with the person he was with, so I didn't say "hi".

Posted by hugh macleod at February 20, 2004 2:30 PM