![\"Metro](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SEI_306248968-3463.jpg\")
\n\t\tA talented cast can\u2019t save this Trainspotting derailment (Picture: Matt Crockett)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\tA talented cast can\u2019t save this Trainspotting derailment (Picture: Matt Crockett)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s time someone took every\u00a0West End\u00a0producer by the hand, invited them to take a deep, steadying breath, and asked them to chant the mantra: \u2018Not everything can or should be a musical.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
If only that intervention had happened before somebody looked at Trainspotting \u2014 a story about heroin addiction, poverty, AIDS, and the failure of the state in urban Scotland \u2014 and thought: you know what this needs? Jazz hands.<\/p>\n
Irvine Welsh\u2019s tale has already had more lives than most stories could dream of. It began as a 1993 novel before becoming a hit stage play, Danny Boyle<\/a>\u2019s era-defining 1996 film, a prequel, three sequels and T2 Trainspotting.<\/p>\n So really, short of a six-part prestige Sky Atlantic drama starring Stephen Graham<\/a>, there was only one place left for it to go. Cue: Glitter and dance break. <\/p>\n But just because a story can keep mutating doesn\u2019t mean it should.<\/p>\n Written by Welsh himself and directed by Caroline Jay Ranger, this latest incarnation never settles on what it wants to be. Comic scenes screech into power ballads with all the subtlety of a train derailment, while the pacing lurches from one iconic Trainspotting moment to the next as though it\u2019s speed-running the greatest hits.<\/p>\n The original songs are largely forgettable, save for one spectacularly baffling number, in which the cast suddenly don cowboy hats. An audience member in front of me audibly groaned as the cast began speaking and singing in Western twangs for reasons that remain unclear. <\/p>\n \t\t \t\t Even when the covers of songs like Lou Reed\u2019s Perfect Day come in, they feel like little more than pleasant reminders of a better film you could have spent your evening watching instead. \u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s a shame, because the cast deserve considerably better. They\u2019re trapped playing characters who are either pale approximations of their film counterparts or strange composite sketches assembled from various corners of Welsh\u2019s ever-expanding universe.<\/p>\n Kieran Andrew\u2019s Spud is one of the few bright spots, with his disastrous job interview still proving as painfully funny as ever. Likewise, Alison\u2019s baby\u2019s death retains some emotional force, although even that devastating moment lands with far less impact than in Boyle\u2019s film. <\/p>\n \t\t \t\t Elsewhere, though, every moment that should hit like a punch to the gut is softened by the demands of the genre. <\/p>\n Tommy\u2019s tragic decline from the group\u2019s healthiest member into heroin addiction feels oddly rushed, while Begbie\u2019s terrifying unpredictability is flattened into theatrical bluster that just feels silly.<\/p>\n The production repeatedly mistakes recognition for reinvention. Iconic lines are wheeled out almost as applause cues, while familiar scenes arrive in a different order without ever revealing anything new about characters many audience members have known for three decades. <\/p>\n \t\t Even the staging struggles to evoke the grime and desperation of Leith, with rolling set pieces and projected backdrops lending everything an oddly sanitised feel.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the fundamental problem. Trainspotting has always been very funny, but only because its humour exists alongside genuine horror. Danny Boyle constantly lulled you into laughing before reminding you just how much is at stake. <\/p>\n Here, every emotional gear change is accompanied by another musical number, leaving the whole thing feeling somewhere between an after-school anti-drugs assembly and a soft-grunge Eurovision<\/a> entry.<\/p>\n \t\t The show felt a bit like someone chopping the head off a cow, replacing it with the head of a salmon, and then asking that chimera to swim upstream to spawn. It\u2019s just not natural.\u00a0<\/p>\n The earnestness inherent in musical theatre as a form is antithetical to Trainspotting\u2019s ethos, with all its grittiness and refusal to conform. The last thing Sickboy would ever do is a peppy little jazz square, and yet he came very close to breaking out tap shoes in this West End flop.\u00a0<\/p>\n Choose life. Choose a job. Choose to see any show but this.<\/p>\n Arrow![\"Metro](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SEI_306248960-9498.jpg\")
\n\t\tForgettable original music doesn\u2019t help the disjointed script (Picture: Matt Crockett)<\/p>\n![\"Metro](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SEI_306249036-8166.jpg\")
\n\t\tDespite strong performances, the actors just couldn\u2019t quite find their way out from under the clunky script (Picture: Matt Crockett)<\/p>\n![\"Editorial](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SEI_256660461-a616.jpg\")
\n\t\tThe original 1996 film was an era-defining hit (Picture: Miramax\/Everett\/REX\/Shutterstock)<\/p>\n![\"Metro](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SEI_306249039-19b3.jpg\")
\n\t\tThe musical characters are written as lackluster imitations of the originals (Picture: Matt Crockett)<\/p>\n![\"Metro](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SEI_306249040-07ea.jpg\")
\n\t\tThe set never quite captures the squalid conditions being described (Picture: Matt Crockett)<\/p>\n![\"Metro](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SEI_306249051-6707.jpg\")
\n\t\tEven the infamous baby scene lands with more of a dull thud than a bang (Picture: Matt Crockett)<\/p>\n
\nMORE: How unlubricated wooden butt plugs finally turned me onto musicals<\/a><\/p>\n