Joe McKinney

Irvine Welsh, the author of Trainspotting, turns his attention to the world of professional darts in a satire of what he calls "the most vacuous and self-defeating foible of our times - the cult of minor celebrity". It follows the disintegrating career of a gormless Welsh darts player and his appalling wife and manager (Jonathan Lewis Owen and Katy Brand), as seen through the lens of a film-maker (Joe McKinney). Welsh is famous for writing the blackest of black comedies, only here the comedy is broader and more exaggerated - more Star Stories than Trainspotting. There are flashes of bleak and shocking humour, but at two hours it feels like an overblown sketch.