Citizens theatre, Glasgow
Harry Gibson’s adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel about urban alienation speaks as loudly, scabrously and irreverently as ever
They used to call it “the Aids capital of Europe”. A crackdown on drug use in Edinburgh in the 1980s made it harder for users to acquire clean needles, so it soon became home to a generation of needle-sharing addicts. The HIV virus proliferated, in a city with a history of heroin abuse.
Throw in a reaction against the loadsamoney capitalism of the Thatcher era and you understand something of the desperate undertow of Irvine Welsh’s landmark novel. The larky imagery of Danny Boyle’s 1996 film adaptation sticks in our heads – Ewan McGregor et al hot-footing it down Princes Street to the rhythms of Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life– but Trainspotting is also a novel of serious social commentary.
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