Draft:The Blade Artist (TV series)

The Blade Artist is an upcoming British television production by Buccaneer Media starring Robert Carlyle reprising the character Francis Begbie. It is an adaptation of the Irvine Welsh book of the same name.

Synopsis
Francis Begbie has reinvented himself now under the name of Jim Francis. After extensive art therapy in prison following the events of T2 Trainspotting, he is released from prison and marries his art therapist Melanie Francis. Jim Francis has 2 daughters and is working in Los Angeles as an artist through sculpture with his blade, when he reveives a call from Edinburgh that his son has been murdered. As he travells back home this story asks the vital question, does a leopard ever change its spots?

Production
In October 2021, Robert Carlyle confirmed that he would be reprising the role of Begbie from the film adaptations of Trainspotting and Porno in a TV miniseries based on The Blade Artist. Buccaneer Media were set to produce the series with Tony Wood and Richard Tulk-Hart as executive producers alongside Carlyle and Welsh. Speaking to Sky News in December 2021 Carlyle explained that the character had discovered sculpture in prison and married his art therapist and was now living in LA. The locations was partly why they were favouring a miniseries over a film return for the character, Carlyle told the NME in 2021 saying “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 can boxset it. They can binge it. So after a few chats we thought that’s the way forward. So that’s the plan.” In May 2022 Jenni Fagan told The Scotsman she was working on the adaptation with Buccaneer.