Edinburgh 2022: Review: IRVINE WELSH'S PORNO, Pleasance Courtyard

 

Making its world premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Irvine Welsh's Porno is a play based on the 2002 novel. Porno is the sequel to hit novel and film Trainspotting, set in Leith in the 1990s.

It's fifteen years after we first met Renton, Spud, Begbie and Sick Boy and Francis Begbie has just been released from prison. The circumstances aren't explained very clearly if you're not familiar with Trainspotting but the four men all stood to make £4,000 from a dodgy deal but Mark Renton took his friends' share and fled to Amsterdam. Begbie received a prison sentence for manslaughter after he stabbed someone thinking it was his friend who betrayed him.

It's difficult to imagine anyone but Robert Carlyle taking on the iconic role of psychopath Begbie but Chris Gavin is a worthy successor. Simon Weir plays narcissistic and charismatic Sick Boy who has decided that his next venture will be filming pornography in the room above the pub that he runs. Kevin Murphy encapsulates the sweet nature of vulnerable Spud, a character contemplating suicide for an insurance payout.

At just an hour and ten minutes, it feels as though Porno doesn't quite cover the depth of the novel or the 2017 film that was based on it and the narrative feels a bit rushed. Irvine Welsh's Porno does contain some strong performances and much-loved characters are well portrayed in this page to stage adaptation.

 

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