The debut feature from Scottish actor Robert Carlyle, The Legend of Barney Thomson, has been named as the opening film at this year’s Edinburgh film festival.



The darkly comic thriller stars Carlyle himself alongside Emma Thompson and Ray Winstone. It is based on Douglas Lindsay’s book The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson, which has spawned a series of seven novels and four novellas, and centres on a socially awkward hairdresser who lives a life of humdrum mediocrity until he cheerfully embarks on a new career as a serial killer.



The demon barber’s macabre new life is complicated when he discovers his mother (Thompson) has her own secret which leads to another bloody chain of events. Winstone will play the local police inspector attempting to uncover the crime of the century while battling with his own hilariously inept colleagues.

“After a career-long association with EIFF, it gives me enormous pleasure to have The Legend of Barney Thomson chosen as opening-night film,” said Carlyle. “It really is such an honour for me to have my first feature as director premiered here in Edinburgh at the festival that has played such a huge part in my life.”

Carlyle, 54, is best known for his turns in Trainspotting, Bond movie The World Is Not Enough, The Full Monty and 28 Weeks Later. Barney Thomson was shot on location in Glasgow and is the first festival opener to be picked by new Edinburgh artistic director Mark Adams. The film will have its world premiere at the Festival Theatre on 17 June.

Adams said: “We are thrilled to be opening this year’s festival with Robert Carlyle’s wonderful black comedy. It is a marvellously macabre and playful film, impressively directed and with a terrific cast. It is the perfect film to kick off what promises to be an exciting festival.”