one4review | On 28, Aug 2022

I don’t know what I’ve just seen. But I know I loved it. The show takes place deep in the bowels of the EICC. Had we not been supplied with glow sticks at the front door you might be forgiven for thinking you’d walked into a nightclub – booming dance music, smoke machine and the cast dancing like their lives depend on it. I feel like I’ve gone back to the late nineties – it feels very familiar! The cast are in amongst the audience, in character and the audience love it.

It doesn’t feel threatening or overbearing – if you know the stories in Irvine Welsh’s cult classic you know you better buckle up because things are about to get messy. This is confirmed by the placement of the Worst Toilet in Scotland at stage right!

We meet our main characters who incidentally play all the supporting characters too. Spud’s character is not depicted in this production but his stories are played out by the other cast members.

Andrew Barrett plays Renton. He plays this character with high energy and confidence- I’d imagine you’d need bucketloads of the stuff to go completely starkers on stage depicting THAT scene with the soiled bedsheets! But as I mentioned – the cast are IN the audience too, in this case completely starkers and desperately trying to clean himself after his wee “accident”. The guy in the back row probably thought he was safe from interaction with the cast – spoiler alert – he wasn’t!

Lauren Downie plays Allison. Be warned, she will have you in tears. She had us doubled over with laughter in some scenes. In other scenes she will break your heart.

Michael Lockerbie is Sick Boy, our charismatic smoothie. His acting is also superb. You could hear a pin drop as he played out the painful scene where he holds his dead daughter in amongst the carnage of Mother Superior’s shooting gallery.

Oliver Sublet is the terrifying Begbie, fierce and psychopathic – his friends fear him and his antagonistic ways. And to be honest, I did too!

Toby Holloway played Tommy at this performance and did a fantastic job of depicting the character’s weakening resolve to stay away from the gear.

But after the ecstasy comes the agony. The spiral into heroin addiction for our characters is brutal. Allison and Sick Boy’s baby dies, Renton overdoses, Tommy succumbs to addiction.
This is a high energy performance. The cast switch from scene to scene quickly but with ease. It’s messy. It’s aggressive. It’s in your face whether you like it or not.

I came out feeling a bit stunned. This production is like nothing I’ve ever seen before, but I left wanting to see it again, and if it hadn’t have been sold out for the remaining performances I would have gone back for more.

Hands down the best show I’ve seen this year.

5*****
Reviewed by Lyndsey
Pleasance at EICC – Cromdale Tunnel
18.00 and 21.00 (1hr 15)
Until 28th Aug