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Trainspotting the Musical review: Not everything needs to be a musical
30 years on and Trainspotting is back... in a sense.
Matt Crockett
- Olivia Garrett
Published: Thursday, 23 July 2026 at 10:23 am
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A star rating of 2 out of 5.
30 years ago, Danny Boyle took Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting and stitched it into a film that defined '90s British cinema, in the making, smoothing its scattered, non-linear structure into one sordid, searing and skag-soaked story – well, perhaps Danny Boyle should have cast his eye over this...
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Trainspotting the Musical has opened at London's Royal Theatre Haymarket with the promise of being a "seismic and expectation-defying" new musical. Once again reuniting fans with the collection of Scottish ne'er-do-wells, Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy, Tommy and Spud, it explores the cursed connection between addiction and poverty in the Edinburgh suburb of Leith, following the boys and their loved ones as heroin takes hold of their lives.
In the build-up, it was said this show would have a "bigger, loudly beating human heart than either the book or the film," and, well, I think we've all collectively learnt that bigger and louder doesn't necessarily lead to more pleasure.
Trainspotting the Musical is one long example of gluttony, a show that dines out on its own greatness and ends up eating itself in the process.
Trainspotting the Musical. Matt Crockett
Right from the off, the show hammers you over the head with its own self-importance, jumping straight from Renton's iconic 'Choose Life' speech to characters in the pub sharing clunky lamentation about kids today. All the way through, the script adopts a tell-don't-show approach with discussions of poverty, addiction and culture spoken like a weather report and repeat instances of Renton narrating exactly what we can see in front of us.
When they're not making mawkish statements about the state of the world, they're filling time with scenes that have absolutely no purpose. One song about the group's trip to Blackpool is intercut with descriptions of Begbie's worst bouts of violence but, wait for it, Begbie isn't even in the scene and has absolutely no link to the song.
Another instance of this is when Renton's girlfriend Diane pops up to sing a girl power bop about being lonely in London – which admittedly, I enjoyed – despite never actually returning to the story.
Trainspotting the Musical. Matt Crockett
Trainspotting the film is certainly known for having a choppy editing style and an overall frenetic energy, but on stage, with people entering and exiting, this comes across like a disjointed variety performance.
I do want to give some praise for the songs, as they certainly gave a stab at being memorable. Plenty of musicals these days carry a generic sound, but the influences of Britpop, Punk and EDM definitely elevated the soundtrack to a level of comforting nostalgia.
However, all of that was undone when the darkest beats of the story were supplanted with songs like Lou Reed's Perfect Day. I fear if you don't have the courage to write songs that can carry emotional weight, then make a jukebox musical rather than relying on others to do the heavy lifting.
I want to stress, however, that the cast were and are exceptionally talented. The faults of the show were slightly dimmed by their compelling voices and on-stage chemistry. It is no easy feat bringing a story like this to live audiences, and they bore it very well. The choreography and set design were also a real hit, but sadly just not enough to make up for basic issues in scripting and structure.
I guess, if I want to end this optimistically – I'd say choose life, choose to watch the Trainspotting movie.
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Olivia Garrett
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