Trainspotting was a 90s masterpiece… the new musical is no Evita but is stuffed full of pills, thrills and belly laughs

★★★☆☆ 1996’s Trainspotting was the cinematic highlight of the greatest year of this country’s wildest decade. Its soundtrack is up there with one of Tarantino’s, so attempting to reboot the epic on stage as a musical carries risks up there with sharing a junkie’s needle. Trainspotting is back – this time, as a musical at Theatre Royal Haymarket in London Credit: Matt Crockett Kieran Andrew nails Spud and brings laughter to the darkness Credit: Supplied Author Irvine Welsh has rewritten this mythical classic and injected new songs, one of the highlights of which has the refrain “c*nts run the country.” Sign up for the Showbiz newsletter Thank you! I’m not quite sure what the esteemed luvvie Dame Elaine Page, who was shimmering close by, thought of that one. Evita it ain’t. The 90s crew were out in force for this premiere at London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket on Wednesday night – Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, TV’s Gail Porter, Paul Whitehouse and Alan Davies, Saffron from Republica, Happy Monday Rowetta and the lads from Loaded magazine. This raucous tale of a quintet of five troubled young Scots dabbling in petty crime and heroin has clearly been a challenge to bring to theatreland, and I’m not certain the West End has ever borne witness to a grieving young mother cooking up some skag while elegantly crooning a touching ballad. Trainspotting is the first novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh that was first published in 1993 Credit: Simon Jones It’s nowhere near Welsh’s tome and Danny Boyle’s cinema classic yet Trainspotting The Musical is stuffed full of pills, thrills and belly laughs Credit: Getty The sets are basic, the performances less so – a menacing Frankie O’Connor shines as thug Begbie, a 2026 Robert Carlyle in the making. And contorting Kieran Andrew nails Spud and brings laughter to the darkness. There are moments of unbridled joy – a rousing Bittersweet Symphony and Perfect Day – yet depths of misery not plumbed by Les Misérables, captured during an introspective Mad World. Most read in Fabulous A few misses though – the film’s unforgettable toilet scene goes down the gurgler and is anti-climactic while those ungrateful killjoys Underworld have also blocked the use of Born Slippy on stage (although pointedly it was the first song played post-curtain). There are shite-stained sheets, headbutts, muggings, lots of running, screaming and expletives which seemed rather unbecoming in such a gilded room, but all underpinned with an intensity and energy from a young cast of which we will see much more. There’s been considerable snobbery from other reviewers and, true, it’s nowhere near Welsh’s tome and Danny Boyle’s cinema classic yet Trainspotting The Musical is stuffed full of pills, thrills and belly laughs. At Theatre Royal Haymarket, London until September 5. Comment now