'Darling,I simply loved your buttocks'

Drama students at Queen Margaret University College in Edinburgh will this month stage the world premiere of local author Irvine Welsh's first musical, writes Olga Wojtas.

The publicity material warns that it "contains very strong language", but director and co-author Harry Gibson insists it is not as expletive-laden as the writer's work can be. The final-year students are said to be unfazed by either the language or the nudity, which involves drunken mooning and an orgy scene.

The musical play, Blackpool , a moral fable whose characters include a crooked councillor, working girls and a celebrity footballer, emerged from "one of those lunchtimes", Mr Gibson said.

He and Welsh approached QMUC after the originally planned professional production was hit by financial difficulties.

Lynn Bains, head of QMUC's acting course, said the collaboration had been mutually beneficial. "This has enabled our students to work at the cutting edge of theatre and it has allowed Harry and Irvine to experiment in ways that would have been impossible in professional theatre, given cast sizes and costs."