[	Tags	|	awesome, review, trainspotting	]
[	where	|	maclab	]
[	mood	|	ecstatic	]
[	music	|	screaming awesomeness banshees	]

Play takes patrons into cesspit

Of all the Dramasoc productions I have seen over the years I think this is probably the best.

I certainly enjoyed it the most, which says a lot about the quality of the production, but also is a way of recognising Harry Gibson's superb adaptation of the classic, cult novel.

You enjoy the play, but it is a curious way to be entertained; watching a bunch of losers drinking, fornicating, vomiting and drugging their lives away. If you thought the film was bad enough, then the play takes an even deeper dive into the cesspit of human existence.

It is a raw, explicit, uncensored look at people on the margins who are consumed by addictions to sex, booze and heroin. What saves the play from tipping over into a ghastly freakshow is its immensely witty and ironic writing.

At the same time, Trainspotting has a cutting, political dimension to it. Whatever else it is about, it also exposes the failure of social democracies to keep all their citizens whole, as it lifts the lid to show the squirming underclass.

As for the production itself, it was excellent. It would be unfair to single out individuals. Let's just say that all the cast did a magnificent job of creating Welsh's sordid world and the deadbeats and weirdos that inhabit it.

They resisted the temptation to play it over the top so that they created a genuine universe that was as real as it was horrible.

The direction was clear and assured, pace was very good and all the technical elements cohered nicely together. It is a first-rate production.