Overview
- The show opened at the Theatre Royal Haymarket and press-night and preview reviews this week were mostly negative, with critics calling the production disjointed and over-reliant on film moments.
- Lewis Kidd stepped into the lead role of Renton after the originally cast actor was injured, and multiple reviews singled out the cast’s performances as a strength despite broader production flaws.
- Reviewers uniformly criticised the new original songs by Irvine Welsh and Stephen McGuinness (Steve Mac) as weak or stylistically mismatched, and said mixing those numbers with well-known film-era hits created a jukebox feel that undermined dramatic flow.
- Critics also argued the staging frequently reproduces iconic scenes from Danny Boyle’s 1996 film rather than reshaping the material for the stage, which they say saps cohesion and reduces subtext to overt exposition.
- The production remains scheduled to run at the Haymarket through 5 September and has a reported tour date in Edinburgh from 19 October, with commercial interest likely to depend on audience nostalgia despite critical reservations.