Preview: Trainspotting, The Loco Klub

Tobacco Factory Theatres bring In Your Face Theatre’s punchy, adrenaline-fuelled production of Irvine Welsh’s cult classic Trainspotting to Bristol this month. Presented as part of Tobacco Factory Theatres’ BEYOND season at The Loco Klub among the tunnels at Temple Meads, In Your Face’s production re-imagines Welsh’s famous novel and the subsequent Danny Boyle film as an immersive theatre experience.

Kicking off with a rave lit by glowsticks, audiences are given a no-holds-barred, close-up view of the lives of Renton, Begbie and Sickboy in a production that aims to “redefine this classic story of hedonism and drug culture for a 21st-century audience”. Welsh himself was impressed: “I was shocked, and I wrote the f*cking thing!”

Here’s co-director Adam Spreadbury-Maher to tell us more.

What was it about the book (or film?) that gripped you and made you want to stage it?
I’ve got this powerful memory of being about 13 and watching Danny Boyle’s film. There’s this moment, when Renton injects himself with heroin, he sinks into the carpet and Lou Reed’s Perfect Day starts playing. It’s the cinematography of that moment that has stayed with me more than anything else. I wanted to recreate how that felt in the context of a live performance.
Also, the story gets so much right when it comes to addiction. It’s not about specific substances: it’s this all-encompassing disease that affects the mind, body and spirit. And you can’t be cured – but you can recover.

The film attracted some criticism for, seemingly, glamourising drug culture. What’s your take on this?
I’m not sure I completely agree. I guess what I can speak about authentically is my production and it starts out fun, the characters do have fun but it’s a progressive illness, addiction, and it ends in one way – death. That’s why the scene with Renton’s mother, where she stops him taking diazepam for his anxiety, is so important. It really hammers the truth home: complete abstinence is the only road to recovery. I don’t think you can argue that Trainspotting shies away from the realities of drug culture just because the soundtrack’s good.

What, if anything, must inevitably be lost in a stage Trainspotting? And what might be gained?
The visual language of film – the images’ sheer power and inventiveness – is, I think, very hard to translate to the stage. What you gain is sensory: the play is much more visceral and immediate. It’s an act of communion too: theatre cannot exist without an audience. That said, the essence of the story is the same, the poetry and lyricism of the language is the same. I would say our version highlights addiction and recovery more clearly, because that’s a huge part of what interested us.

How involved will audiences find themselves getting?
I think some boring, formulaic, traditional, tired old productions often forget about the audience. You go and see stuff sometimes and feel as if you may as well not be there. Our production is explicitly immersive, it celebrates the audience: they’re involved as characters, bystanders, very much part of the world. I want people to leave their cares at the door, and for 70 minutes to become something else in the way that the actors do.

Trainspotting is at The Loco Klub, Bristol Temple Meads from Apr 6-17. For more info, visit www.tobaccofactorytheatres.com/shows/trainspotting