A queue of several hundred ticket-holders sporting orange bucket hats outside Leith Theatre was an indication of the anticipation for the Trainspotting live event at Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) on Friday, August 14 – a screening of Danny Boyle’s 1996 film with running commentary from cast and crew.
The live event was a centrepiece occasion for this year’s EIFF. Hats with the film’s ‘Choose life’ slogan were presented to every attendee, before an evening that often resembled more a rock gig combined with a club night, than a traditional film festival screening.
Starting from 8pm, the high-energy tone was set by a 75-minute pre-screening set from local DJ Nasty P, featuring rock favourites from the 1970s, 80s and 90s. A bar at the back of the hall serving beer cans, soft drinks and mixers proved instantly popular; while outside the main room there were trucks serving up pizza and chips; and a row of portable toilets. The atmosphere was closer to Glastonbury than the formality of a red carpet premiere.
A diverse audience filled the hall, with the recent trend of young cinemagoing audiences in evidence. Many in the room would not have been born when the film was first released in February 1996.
The event was both a 30th anniversary celebration and a homecoming – including for Irvine Welsh, author of the 1993 novel, much of which is set in the Leith district to the north of the city. It was a crowning moment for the theatre, which has undergone a £10m regeneration and was removed from the Theatres at Risk Register last month.
With an adequately hydrated audience, by 9.15pm it was time to get the show on, with the crowd of several hundred all standing, save for a small number of seats for those who required one. Festival director Paul Ridd started by thanking partners including Film4, the theatre, and UK-Ireland distributor Park Circus, which is conducting a theatrical release of a 4k restoration of the film from August 21. Festival producer Emma Boa then brought out the evening’s host, journalist Robbie Collin, who in turn introduced the panel: actors Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner and Kevin McKidd, producer Andrew Macdonald, screenwriter John Hodge, costume designer Rachael Fleming, production designer Kave Quinn, and Welsh.
Collin eased the audience in with pre-film questions of the kind to which they would be more accustomed. Macdonald recalled first realising they had a potential hit “when we saw the billboards going up”, while McGregor remembered “seeing [the film] for the first time on Wardour St in Soho, and coming out and not being able to speak”.
Memories
The film then started, with its now-iconic beginning of McGregor’s Renton and Bremner’s Spud being chased along Edinburgh’s Princes St and Calton St. Collin turned to the assembled cast and crew with questions about the scene on screen at various points, with the film volume turned down slightly when there was on-stage speaking.
“We were followed by a quad bike with a camera,” said Bremner of the opening chase. “Health and safety was a bit amiss that day. I nearly got cancelled by a quad bike because I couldn’t run as fast as Ewan.”
Some viewers may have needed a moment to settle in to watching a film with interruptions; but once over that initial strangeness, the evening continued its celebratory tone. The format worked well for a film that most in the room would’ve known already, with the familiarity adding to the excitement - numerous favourite scenes drew cheers, like for a band playing its hits. The audience also bellowed out certain lines in tandem with the film, including Francis Begbie’s “Did you bring the cards?”, and most notably a deafening roar of Renton’s ”It’s shite being Scottish”, drawing laughter from McGregor and his castmates.
The cast and crew chipped in regularly with memories of the production. When the three actors received a round of applause for the tripartite sex scene set to Blondie’s ‘Atomic’, McKidd revealed he had never done a nude scene of that kind before. McGregor shared that, in a film full of heroin usage, there is just one real injection, when the nurse injects Renton to revive him following his overdose.
Macdonald told the crowd how he spent many months trying to get radio and TV host Chris Evans to appear as the TV host in the scene of Renton’s delirium, even visiting the set of Evans’ show Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush, before Dale Winton ultimately stepped into the role. As for the trivia favourite of Keith Allen’s drug dealer being the same character as in Boyle’s previous film Shallow Grave? “All part of the masterplan,” quipped Hodge.
The balance between watching the film and hearing from those who made it was deftly managed. Both those in the audience and those on stage were regularly engrossed by the screening; on one occasion, Collin began a question only to wisely hold back due to murmurs from the audience who wanted to see the scene play out.
Once the 93-minute film reached its end with Renton crossing London’s Waterloo Bridge to an apparent new life, the cast and crew left the stage to loud cheers and applause; before the music returned. Welsh helmed a DJ set of dance music from 11pm until 12.30am; before Darren Emerson of UK electro group Underworld took over.
A committed crowd of ravers kept going until gone 2.30am, and were rewarded by Emmerson playing ‘Born Slippy .NUXX’, the dance track which closes out the film. Thirty years on from Trainspotting’s hedonistic launch, EIFF showed there’s still an excess of life in one of the favourites of Scottish cinema.
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