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The release of Trainspotting in 1996 was a defining moment for Gen Xers like me: a mixture of Adidas cool, indie pop and in-your-face deviancy. Based on Irvine Welsh’s superb, scabrous 1993 novel about a group of Edinburgh heroin addicts, Danny Boyle’s hit breathed new life into the moribund UK film industry and became a marker of Cool Britannia.
All of which, you might think, would make it an obvious candidate for the big West End treatment. Sadly, this stage musical – scripted by Welsh, who also co-wrote the music and lyrics with Stephen McGuinness – is a misguided muddle. It is partly in thrall to the film while also trying to broaden the canvas to show the effect of drug use on the wider community. We are living, after all, in more censorious times, and while I would argue that Trainspotting didn’t glamourise heroin, it certainly made us fall a little in love with Welsh’s motley band of users.
The incoherence of this production, at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, is best illustrated by its music. While the film’s famously killer soundtrack has, in part, been retained (Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life and Lou Reed’s Perfect Day both feature), it is diluted by a mixture of pop hits that weren’t in the film and, worst of all, a set of new songs which, with the exception of a jolly hoedown entitled C---s Run the Country, barely register. It is downright odd to see such cynical no-hopers as Renton (Lewis Kidd) and Sick Boy (Sheridan Townsley) going all jazz hands, and it undermines the power of Welsh’s characterisation.
Frequent nods to the film’s iconography also fall short on stage. The scene in which hapless Spud (Kieran Andrew) has a revolting tussle with soiled bed sheets – an explosively hilarious moment on screen – becomes muted and almost sad. Meanwhile, Renton’s famous dive into a foul pub loo, which transforms into a deep-sea swim, is rendered via back projection. While it’s not exactly bad, and provides relief from the otherwise uninspired set design, it also reminds you that there is too much going on here.
There are some saving graces: the scenes of heroin addiction are well acted and directed (by Caroline Jay Ranger) and reach a rarely achieved poignancy. It is also hard to find fault with Welsh’s aphoristic dialogue (such as the “Choose Life” speech), which feels as fresh and exciting as ever.
The performances, on the other hand, are mixed; some characters are played too much like tribute acts to their counterparts in the film. However, I admired both Rosie Dignan as the helpless Alison and Townsley, who brings a genuinely fresh perspective to the nihilistic Sick Boy. In the lead role of Renton, Lewis Kidd is charismatic and commanding.
In the end, though, with the same desperation as Trainspotting’s darkest characters, you wonder what the point of it all is. Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a family. Choose The Phantom of the Opera at the theatre over the road.
Theatre Royal Haymarket, London SW1, until Sept 5 and then touring from Oct 19–March 20
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Irvine Welsh on turning Trainspotting's junkie drama into a West End 'sing-a-long'
