IAN Brown's gut-wrenching production of life down among Edinburgh's
young drug addicts has finally hit London and if the Bush Theatre's
audience is anything to go by, has already found its natural home.
Forget the difference between tough Edinburgh vernacular and the south,
forget the difference between lifestyles.
The under-thirtysomethings in this audience knew exactly, even shared
(if that's not too emotive a word in the circumstances) the world author
Irvine Welsh and Ewan Bremner's quasi-narrator Mark are coming from.
They loved the insipient anarchy of it, they groaned with the desperate
degradation of it, and they thrilled to the dramatic energy of it.
Bremner as the ''drying-out'' junkie Mark is again outstanding. This
actor has a way of conveying vulnerability, nervous energy, and
rebellion all in the flick of those elongated fingers. But James
Cunningham's ravaged Tommy, Susan Vidler as Alison, and Malcolm
Shields's terrifying portrait of bully boy and mafioso, Franco, equally
make the blood run cold.
Audiences may find the temporary entertainment in the ribaldry adaptor
Harry Gibson, Brown and the cast have managed to draw out of this story
of hopelessness and human waste. But there's no mistaking the lessons --
death by a hundred cuts -- and the rage beneath. If I have a criticism,
it is that the humour in a sense, lets us, the audience, off the hook.
Mark's rehabilitation and recovery from such abuse, too, seems
remarkably speedy. But those quibbles apart, it remains a theatrical
stunner -- a harrowing testament to a generation. Trainspotting should
be required viewing in every London borough and throughout the land, one
of the most important plays the Bush has ever presented.
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