Music & Lyrics: Irvine Welsh and Stephen McGuinness
Writer: Irvine Welsh
Director: Caroline Jay Ranger
It’s 30 years since Trainspotting, Danny Boyle’s era-defining brilliance, hit movie screens. The unforgettable film about drug addicts in Edinburgh, based on the novel by Irvine Welsh, seared into the imagination and left senses and emotions reeling. Now, incredibly and bizarrely, this tale of a gang of drug-addled nihilists lost to skag and squalor is a musical.
While it might seem unfair to draw a direct comparison between the new musical and original film, its pre-recognition legacy is fully exploited by this new production. From the neon graphics and title writ large into the set to the similarity of some of the cast, specifically Sheridan Townsley as Sick Boy and Yana Harris as Kelly, there’s a calculated decision to stoke memories and draw in the 50/60 something, Trainspotting appreciation crowd. But this may well be a decision that backfires.
Trainspotting The Musical is destined to remain in the shadow of the film. Clearly a labour of love, a huge amount of creativity, talent and time has gone into this touring world premiere. There are new songs by Irving Welsh and Stephen McGuinness and additional community characters drawn in, such as parents who function to give some kind of social commentary on what’s happening, but even these alluring propositions can’t quite help this musical fully morph into its own singular entity.
It stays true to its gritty, authentic self, and the largely Scottish company go all out with expletive-filled undiluted dialect, not easy to understand for non-Scottish natives, but that’s fine because you get the gist of what’s happening regardless. The aesthetic is industrial: railway arches, the browns and greys of inner-city decay and urban neglect. Some of the video work by Douglas O’Connell is impressive and conveys the transcendental experience of a chemical high. Multiple large screens see tripping Renton swim underwater, at peace, the noise and brutality of existence silenced.
Trainspotting is a love letter to heroin and conveys beautifully, even poetically, its magic and draw. When the musical itself becomes part of a bad trip, it really lands with the audience, perhaps because they are experiencing it too. Even the breakout sequences of line dancing – perhaps a reference to the Wild West – can’t make up for a confused narrative, cluttered aesthetic and overcrowded story.
Iggy Pop said that the use of Lust for Life in the movie introduced a whole new audience to his music, and you can hear it again here alongside Perfect Day by Lou Reed and Mad World by Tears for Fears and Temptation by Heaven 17. The other songs penned by Stephen McGuinness and Welsh are widely heralded but forgettable.
Renton (Lewis Kidd), originally played by Ewan McGregor, our hero, is outshone by the rest of the cast. The story of Alison (impressive West End debut by Rosie Dignan), a bereaved heroin addict who loses her baby to cot death, is the storyline that sticks. Kieran Andrew plays it camp and angular as Spud and brings comical light relief as the hopeless, jittery, thieving smackhead, while Frankie O Connor is the swaggering, psychotic Begbie – and resident Fight Director.
Why do people see musicals? For light relief and entertainment, to root for a protagonist, to feel hope or redemption. Musicals are perfectly able to tackle the toughest subjects: Child trafficking (Oliver), relentless poverty (Les Misérables), the rise of Fascism (Cabaret), but you need terrific, memorable songs, someone to root for and ultimately some hope or redemption.
The medium of the musical simply may not be the right fit for Trainspotting, while to see the story unfold in the velvet and gilt splendour of Haymarket Royal is jarring, something between poverty porn and the Victorian freak show. While it has some redeeming features, Trainspotting The Musical sadly has more lows than highs.
Runs until 5 September 2026 and then tours
