The stage version of Trainspotting, its director tells RUSSELL BAILLIE, has a power that can make an audience forget the film.
Trainspotting - isn't that a mid-90s pop culture phenomenon?
The book, the movie, the soundtrack and all that? The phenomenon which made stars of headbutting Scottish writer Irvine Welsh and actor laddie Ewan McGregor and gave Iggy Pop a pension plan along the way?
Wait, there's more. Here comes Trainspotting: The Play.
The Henry Gibson-adapted script of Welsh's novel actually pre-dates the hit film about Edinburgh drug buddies.
A production by Toasted House starts at the Herald Theatre tonight, following a Christchurch season from a different script. There was also a version with a British cast which was booked at the St James late last year but cancelled before it arrived from Australia.
Director Christopher Mead, who himself has crossed the Tasman to guide the Toasted House cast, is confident this latest incarnation of the grimly humorous story of junkiedom and life on the dole will find a ready audience now.
"It's very demanding. It's chock-full of humour but has its very, very dark moments and very, very violent moments as well. It's not for the sensitive, it's for the brave."
Those expecting it as the movie rendered for stage are in for a surprise.
"I saw the movie when it came out a couple of years ago and obviously the actors looked at the movie to see if it could help their character choices. But the movie is so sketchy in terms of the other characters really.
"The play is about 40 per cent the same as the movie ... it's much more about the power of the words and we see much more into the lives of the other characters. And because you are getting so much more information in the play you forget about the film after a while."
The cast features Scott Wills (as Renton, but he played Begbie in the Christchurch production), Ingrid Park (Shortland Street's Mackenzie, here playing Lizzie), Matthew Sunderland (Begbie) and Eryn Wilson (Sick Boy).
One of their biggest challenges, says Mead, has been getting their brains around Welsh's extended barrages of language in working-class Scottish accents.
"Early on in rehearsal we tried it all Kiwi and it worked. But we are faithful to the text - not necessarily faithful to the accents, but we're trying ..."
And as for coming a few years on from the first Trainspotting wave of popularity, Mead says the gap benefits the Auckland production, which heads to Wellington next month.
"I think it's a really good distance. The play went to New York and it seemed to suffer because it came just after the film and I think people were over it.
"The film was very much concerned with the visual metaphors whereas the play is much more about creating this world."
So you can't stage Renton's swimming-around-the-U-bend scene then?
"No, but you can use a chair. It's the power of the words which carries the scene - and the performance by the actor."
What: Trainspotting: The Play
Where: Herald Theatre
When: From tonight until August 7
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
Latest from Lifestyle
UK's most popular baby names revealed
Old-fashioned monikers are becoming much rarer, a new survey reveals.