Review: IRVINE WELSH'S PORNO, Arts Theatre

At the end of Trainspotting, we left Irvine Welsh’s gang of rascals and druggies to try to move forward with their lives. Fifteen years later, Renton returns to Scotland to be at his mother’s bedside. He hasn’t been back since he fled with his stolen load of cash, leaving Begbie in prison, Spud with £4000 more to spend on drugs, and Sickboy to pick up the pieces.

It’s not surprising to see that they haven’t chosen life, after all, in this unfortunately miserable adaptation of Welsh’s novel Porno. The reason for the title is Sickboy’s new venture, shooting porn, but it comes off with such a weak impact here that it feels quite random. An alleged hit at the Fringe in 2022, it disappears on a bigger stage and sadly becomes a steady trudge.

A few overly slow, silent interludes and an unnecessary interval don’t help. Plenty of political incorrectness that borders on the offensive spices things up and has the foul-mouthed characters drag laughs out of an easily pleased audience, but Davie Carswell’s text tends to be rather paceless, going around in circles with quite a bit of surplus material, while director Jonty Cameron doesn’t add any creative flair.

Static projections suspended over the space (borrowed from The Choir of Man for five Sundays) and a tiny pub setting don’t fill the room. Only a shadow of Welsh’s literary counterparts, many of the odd personalities don’t have much presence either. Liam Harkins is, regrettably, an insipid, uncharismatic Renton who’s briefly repentant and mostly flippant towards Tony McGeever’s washed-out Sickboy.

Chris Gavin and Kevin Murphy give the most compelling performances as Begbie and Spud, but can’t lift the whole piece, which is overlong, overly stodgy, and, frankly, generally boring. It simply doesn’t have any of the kick and shock value of the original. Choose something else.

Porno runs at the Arts Theatre on Sundays until 10 December.

Photo credit: Kenny Ramsey

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