Review: TRAINSPOTTING LIVE, Riverside Studios

Choose Trainspotting Live. Choose to be up close and personal with selections from Irvine Welsh's novel and Danny Boyle's film. Choose a journey into the underbelly of late-1980s Edinburgh. Choose that iconic speech. Choose interactive, immersive, in-your-face, in-your-hair and on-your-lap theatre. Choose to dive into a world of drugs, sex, death and job interviews.

Choose to start off in the middle of a loud rave. Choose to wear earplugs (bring your own). Choose to be sat on, pushed past or tenderly stroked. Choose whether to sit by the toilet. Choose to have a pool cue miss your head by inches. Choose to be splattered by something cold, brown and wet. Choose strong nudity, strong drama and strongly accented dialogue with no subtitles, surtitles or subtlety. Choose pitch black humour. Choose an eternally bouncy soundtrack.

Choose moving monologues. Choose brutal banter. Choose horrifying scenes that you can't look at but can't not look at. Choose seeing characters talking smack, doing smack or both. Choose to see the entertaining film sequel.

Choose to engage with a ferocious experience directed by Greg Esplin and Ben Anderson which never lets up. Choose to be blown away by a play delivered with conviction and character by a cast (Andrew Barrett, Esplin, Michael Lockerbie, Olivier Sublet and, on press night, Olivia Caw stepping in for Lauren Downie) who commit every fibre of their being. Choose to hold this production up as an example of how modern theatre can powerfully kick through the fourth wall good and hard and proper. Choose Trainspotting for an unforgettable experience. The good kind.

Choose to tell all your mates about Trainspotting because, frankly, if there is anyone you know who sees this and then still scoffs at the very notion of a night out at the theatre, they might not be the kind of people you want as mates, you ken?

(after Peter Bradshaw.)

Trainspotting Live continues at Riverside Studios until 6 November.

Photo Credit: Geraint Lewis

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