The plot concerns four male teenagers growing up in the town of Falkirk, exploring the influences of popular culture, global capitalism and social class on the lives of young people in contemporary Scotland.

Alvin’s formative development is tracked in the context of the group’s activities, including boy-racing around the town in a car called Belinda and engaging in debates about film and music.

As the most intellectually gifted of the group, Alvin struggles with the dilemma of choosing to continue his generally enjoyable local life or to leave his friends and the town behind and attend University.

[3] For the Scottish Review of Books, along with some of Bissett’s later works it “dramatised the tragicomic gap between media mirages of the good life and the cold reality we live in”.

[4] On his official website in 2011, Bissett stated that the film had received funding from Scottish Screen and would be produced by Hopscotch Productions.