Choose life with Trainspotting The Musical in Nottingham
Thirty years on from the film that changed everything, Trainspotting The Musical is embarking on a national UK tour.
And it comes to Nottingham’s Theatre Royal next January.
In 1996, Trainspotting was released and became the biggest grossing UK film of the year and won a slew of awards including a BAFTA for Best Screenplay.
In 1999 it was ranked 10th in the British Film Institute’s Top 100 Greatest British Films of the 20th Century.
Now, three decades later, the industrial drug-crazed working-class heroes of British youth culture are back, live on stage – Renton, Sick Boy, Begbie, Spud, Tommy and Kelly.
Trainspotting’s author Irvine Welsh said: “I believe the musical has a bigger, loudly beating human heart than either the book or the film.
"People need to think about the world we’re living in, and we offer that inspection, but they also need to sing their hearts out and laugh their heads off.
"It’s what being human is all about.
"We’ve put together an incredible Scottish cast and I can’t wait to see them bring the musical to life.”
In 1996, choose life sounded like a challenge.
Now the landscape has shifted, but the hunger hasn’t, addiction hasn’t disappeared – it's shifted.
It’s quieter now, more embedded. Less needle, more screen. Less escape, more repetition.
The modern addiction to mobile phones, faces stuck to screens, the same restless search for something to fill the space.
Trainspotting The Musical highlights the world we see changing around us, the obscene concentration of wealth, economic and political power in the hands of so few people.
It addresses the modern culture of powerlessness.
The show features new songs (with music and lyrics by Stephen McGuinness and Irvine Welsh) in addition to some of the electrifying tracks from the original film that defined a generation.
It comes to Nottingham from January 18-23.