If a week is a long time in politics, 30 years is an aeon in popular culture. It was in 1996 that Danny Boyle’s film of Irvine Welsh’s novel, Trainspotting, exploded over Britpop Britain, with its frequently horrifying but perversely life-affirming saga of a bunch of Edinburgh junkies. Its opening sequence of Renton and Spud being chased through the Edinburgh streets by a pair of store detectives, with Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” pounding like a steamhammer over Ewan McGregor’s “choose life” monologue, has crystallised in time as one of the all-time classic moments of British cinema.
Welsh’s authorial hand is behind this stage musical version, and he has also written some new songs for it in collaboration with Stephen McGuinness, while the film’s key cast members – Renton, Spud, Sick Boy, Tommy and Begbie – return for the occasion (though not with the movie cast). The film’s finest moment lives again with the chase scene and “Lust for Life” kicking off the action, but sadly it’s not Iggy’s trash-punk original but a version cooked up for the show, played by the house band tucked away at stage left (pictured below, Frankie O'Connor as Begbie, doing what he does best).
True, this is the stage musical and not the movie, but this immediately warns you that the show is going to have a very different feel than the celluloid incarnation. The absence of the gritty and very specific physical locations from the film isn’t compensated for by a fairly static stage set, though some audio-visual enhancements lend a helping hand. In particular, there are projections of some garish cowboy cartoons which adorn a wacky Country & Western hoedown, charmingly titled “Cunts in the Country”. Elsewhere, a sequence of Renton (Lewis Kidd) out of his brain after eating some opium suppositories is accompanied by images of him swimming trippily underwater, harking back to the “worst toilet in Scotland” episode from the film.
Following in the footsteps of Danny Boyle’s cast was not a task for the faint-hearted, but the new crew make a heroic stab at it. Kidd’s Renton acts as narrator, signposting the action and giving us insights into his own tormented soul, while Sheridan Townsley communicates a kind of queasy laid-backness as Sick Boy. Frankie O’Connor bravely steps into the shoes of Begbie, the swearing, head-butting psychopath so terrifyingly realised back in ‘96 by Robert Carlyle. And hats off to Kieran Andrew for his splendid turn as Spud, a kind of hapless ditherer who expresses himself most eloquently by manipulating his long, gangling limbs into preposterous and improbable shapes.
Then there’s Finlay Paul as Tommy, who manages to avoid succumbing to the demon smack for most of the running time, before disastrously giving in to temptation after his girlfriend Lizzie (Sophie Hutchinson) dumps him. His rapid decline from being the only sensible, well-balanced one in the room to pitiful casualty is dismal to behold.
As director Caroline Jay Ranger (who also directed Only Fools and Horses – The Musical) points out, the show also finds space to explore some supporting characters and how they’re affected by the collateral damage of drug abuse. These include Renton’s parents Cathy and Davie (Rebecca McKinnis and Gordon Cooper) as well as Spud’s mother Colleen (Ashley J Russell), who has a fine solo singing spot in the first half. Rosie Dignan delivers an affecting turn as Alison, Sick Boy’s girlfriend, as the pair of them have to deal with the death of their baby, Dawn (Dignan, McKinnis and Sophie Hutchinson pictured above).
But you can’t help lamenting the absence of the original movie soundtrack. The newly-written songs are no match for New Order, Primal Scream, Pulp or Blur, though the cast do Tears for Fears’ “Mad World” and The Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony” for good measure. And there’s an ensemble version of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” for a finale, though this seems an odd way to sign off on a story about addiction, squalor and dead babies. Renton should have taken his own advice – “choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance…”
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