Author Irvine Welsh has said that Trainspotting the Musical will be made into a stage production in London’s West End in July – before setting off on a tour starting in his home city of Edinburgh.
The Scots author, 67, said the stage musical will include several original songs alongside classic tracks from the 1996 movie soundtrack.
He said key tracks would include Iggy Pop’s Lust For Life and Lou Reed classic Perfect Day, while Underworld’s Born Slippy could also feature.
And Welsh, who has been working on new numbers for the adaptation of his cult 1993 novel, hopes the new songs will become “as iconic as the songs from the film”.
He said: “Trainspotting is going into the West End as a musical in July. We’re going to the Theatre Royal in Haymarket on the 13th of July.
“We’re there for a few months and then we go on tour, starting in Edinburgh at The Playhouse.
“In some ways it was a strange thing – I never ever thought this would be a musical but it is actually really, really good. Of course I’m biased.
“We’ve written a lot of original songs for it. The guy that I do the music with is down in Brighton now and I’m in Miami so that makes it a bit difficult but we send stuff back and forward with each other online.
“We’re just trying to get the songs done and finished and basically mixed and mastered.
“We’re working with a really great theatrical guy and obviously the actors have got to sing the stuff as well. The two are very closely bound for me.”
Welsh, who was speaking live online to an audience at Muirhouse Library, part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival’s Paper Trails initiative, added: “The thing about (the musical) is you can write tracks about the characters and the scenarios, so you can tell a lot of storytelling that way. Instead of the tired exposition, you get them bursting into song.
“But we’ve got some songs from the film. We’ve got Lust For Life and Perfect Day, and hopefully Born Slippy, we’re trying to get that cleared so people have that sense of familiarity with that kind of world.
“But they’ll also hear some of the new songs we’ve done. I’m hoping they become as iconic as the songs from the film.”
The musical will be based on Welsh’s debut novel featuring a cast of characters including Mark “Rents” Renton, Simon “Sick Boy” Williamson, Francis “Franco” Begbie and Daniel “Spud” Murphy.
The book has already been adapted into multiple stage plays and an immersive “live” theatrical experience.
Most famously, it was made into the acclaimed film directed by Danny Boyle and starring Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle, Ewen Bremner and Kelly Macdonald.
Welsh insisted he wasn’t possessive of adaptations of his work, however.
He said: “I don’t see myself as a curator of that stuff. I think once you’ve done it as a book you’ve given it away.
“I’m always encouraging people adapting my stuff to go out there a bit and just kind of play hard and fast with it… You have to realise with adaptations, it has to work in that medium.”
