“No One Is Comfortable In Their Own Skin”: Irvine Welsh On Why He Wrote A Trans Character Into ‘Crime’ Season 2 — Edinburgh TV Festival

Jake Kanter
·2 min read
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Trainspotting writer Irvine Welsh has said that he wrote a transgender character into Season 2 of Crime to show how people are struggling with their identity in the modern world.

The Dougray Scott drama will stream in the UK on ITVX next month and follows detective Ray Lennox as he returns to crime fighting in Edinburgh following a breakdown.

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Lennox quickly becomes embroiled in a case about vengeance, identity, and social justice after one of his former colleagues is attacked.

Produced by Buccaneer Media, Crime Season 2 has cast Boy Meets Girl star Rebecca Root as a transgender character who is navigating a world that has not fully accepted her identity.

Speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival, Welsh said he wanted to be “sensitive” to gender identity issues in the show, which engaged a trans advisor during filming.

He argued that the end of capitalism has sparked an identity crisis for many, including “rich, privileged, white, heterosexual” men.

“No one is comfortable in their own skin,” he said. “We tried to let that permeate every single character, rather than just the trans character … They’re all fighting in different ways to make their voices heard. They’re all acting out in some way in this mad ship of fools.”

During a Crime masterclass at Edinburgh, producers showed a clip in Ken Stott’s DCS Robert Toal consistently gets the pronouns of Root’s trans character wrong. He is corrected by Joanna Vanderham’s DS Amanda Drummond.

Vanderham said she liked the fact that her character was correcting her boss. She added that the trans issue is not “shoehorned” into the season.

BritBox International streamed the first season of Crime in the U.S. and has acquired the rights to Season 2. Welsh revealed that he is planning for a third season, while Scott added that the series was conceived as a trilogy.

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