Celebs hit Filth premiere as lead actor James McAvoy reveals he would play predator Jimmy Savile on film

Celebs hit Filth premiere as lead actor James McAvoy reveals he would play predator Jimmy Savile on film

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The movie might be dark and gritty showing the mental breakdown of a troubled copper â€" but the premiere for Filth was a far more glamorous affair.

The cast and crew hit up the West End in London and were joined on the Smurf blue â€" which is definitely a colour - at the Odeon cinema.

Among attendees were Filth and Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh and a host of other celebrities including one half of Rizzle Kicks, Lydia Bright and Lucy Spraggan.

Lead actor James McAvoy also revealed he would play Jimmy Savile if the writer ever penned a script about the sex predator.

Speaking at a screening of Filth last month, McAvoy lifted the lid on his trusting working relationship with Welsh.

And he was generous in his tributes to the man behind the "unfilmable" third book turned movie, which also stars Jim Broadbent and Jamie Bell.

Welsh told the Radio Times that while making Filth, he discussed the subject of sexual abuse with X-Men star McAvoy, who apparently told him: "If you ever write a script about it, I'd love to play Jimmy Savile."

It's one of the darkest movies released this year

In Welsh's 1996 collection Ecstasy, one of the stories, Lorraine Goes to Livingston, concerns Freddy Royle, a fictional children's TV presenter described as the nation's "favourite caring, laconic uncle", who turns out to be a child molester and necrophiliac, raising millions for the hospital where he commits his crimes.

The story was written over 15 years before Savile's crimes became public.

Asked whether the similarities were based on inside knowledge, Welsh told the Radio Times: "I had nothing to do with the hospital services, or NHS trusts, or the BBC.

"So how come I knew this rumour about Jimmy Savile, this eccentric British institution? There must have been so much stuff on the grapevine. But there was a whole culture then of not addressing these issues."

Welsh said that he was groped by middle-aged women when, as a student in the late 70s, he worked in a bingo hall.

He said that he believed such abusive behaviour was "all about power".