I remember the first time I watched the film version of Trainspotting, huddled on a mate's sofa in Edinburgh with a bag of crisps and far too much optimism about how relatable it would feel. Thirty years on, the story has clambered onto the stage at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, and somehow the leap feels both inevitable and slightly mad. Performances began on 15 July, with the press night landing last night, and the whole thing crackles with that same unfiltered pulse that made the novel a landmark.
The production brings Irvine Welsh's book to the West End with a sharp creative team. Welsh himself has written the book and shares music and lyrics credits with Stephen McGuinness. Caroline Jay Ranger directs and has shaped the development, steering a cast that includes the familiar faces of Renton, Sick Boy, Begbie, Spud, Tommy and Kelly, plus an ensemble and a live band hammering away behind them. It is not some polite adaptation. The show carries a 15 age guidance and does not flinch from drug taking, death, swearing or the adult references that were always part of the fabric.
What stays with you is how stubbornly it refuses to dilute the original voice. This is contemporary British and Scottish storytelling doing what it does best: dragging the messy realities of life underclass Edinburgh into the light without reaching for imported ideological gloss. The tracks from the 1996 Danny Boyle film sit alongside brand new songs, letting the music feel like an extension of the characters' chaotic energy rather than a bolted-on gimmick. In an age when so much theatre seems keen to lecture, there is something quietly defiant about simply letting these lads and their world speak for themselves.
Lewis Kidd now plays Renton after Robbie Scott had to withdraw following an injury in rehearsals. Kidd's arrival feels like one of those happy accidents that sometimes sharpen a show. The rest of the company looks locked in, and the Theatre Royal Haymarket, with all its grand history, makes an oddly perfect frame for the rawness unfolding on its stage. The run continues until 5 September before the production heads off on a UK tour that kicks off back in Edinburgh this autumn. Full circle, as these things often are.
I suspect plenty of us who grew up with the book or the film will wander in half expecting the old rush and half wondering if it can possibly land the same way in a musical. From what has emerged so far, it seems the team has trusted the source material instead of trying to reinvent it for today's sensitivities. That alone makes it worth celebrating. In a culture increasingly tempted to sand down the rough edges of its own stories, here is one that refuses to apologise for where it came from.
There is a tenderness underneath the swagger, a recognition that these characters are products of a particular time and place in British life. Welsh has always had that knack for finding the humanity in the wreckage. Bringing it to the stage with live music and no safety net feels like the right evolution. Not every literary classic needs a musical, but this one appears to have earned it on its own terms.
