The misadventures of heroin addict Renton and his friends from Irvine Welsh’s 1994 novel can fairly be called a phenomenon. Trainspotting is no stranger to film or stage. The idea of turning the piece into a musical presumably came from the integral role that songs have played in its popularity. Yet, despite Welsh clearly giving his approval to director and developer Caroline Jay Ranger, and working with Stephen McGuinness on the music and lyrics, the result here does not replicate that success.
For a start, there is the misguided marketing appeal to nostalgia: the boast that the show will “transport you back to the Nineties”. But what is being looked back on is pretty grim and, to his credit, Welsh has never tried to hide that. Unfortunately, in this iteration, the political point connecting poverty, crime and drug addiction feels thrown in. Time and again, characters simply comment on how awful life is in Leith. With little added beyond a string of tragic events, the show generates a bizarre lack of sympathy.
Welsh’s characters, with whom so many people seem intoxicated, are flattened. While Lewis Kidd brings great energy to the stage as Renton, he is far stronger as a narrator than when required to embody the horrors of drug withdrawal, creating an uncomfortable imbalance. Sheridan Townsley seems wasted as an underwritten Sick Boy – we are never given enough sense of where his contempt for other people comes from. And it is a major mistake in Ranger’s direction to allow performances to come so close to screen versions. Kieran Andrew and Frankie O’Connor both seem to be impersonating other actors rather than creating characters of their own.
It is welcome that the women in the piece are more prominent. But nothing can hide the fact that they live their lives through their relationships with boyfriends or sons. Yana Harris and Sophie Hutchinson find this too much of a demand to generate powerful performances, while Rosie Dignan is fortunate to have a more substantial role. The strongest acting comes from Rebecca McKinnis and Ashley J Russell, who play parents of the wayward youths, but their roles are written generically: their characters largely just bicker and moan. Frankly, everyone is a bit of a bore.
It is possible that the attempt to make the action more even-handed is intended to provide greater space for female voices – in the most literal sense. But here lies the production’s biggest problem: what is sung, and how it sounds, is simply not good enough. Although there isn’t much music in the show, what there is is mostly bad. The original compositions are generic or poor pastiches, the lyrics simple and crass. The pop songs everyone associates with Trainspotting are included, but they feel obligatory, making little sense within the action. Everyone knows the words, so when performers become lost in them it is painful and the show comes dangerously close to karaoke. But less fun.
Until 5 September 2026
www.trainspottingthemusical.co.uk
Photo by Matt Crockett
