Irvine Welsh talked about the 30th anniversary of his novel Trainspotting in an interview with the Observer.
The Scottish author’s debut novel was published in 1993 and quickly became a cult classic. The book, which follows a group of friends in Edinburgh with various addictions—especially heroin—was adapted into a 1996 film directed by Danny Boyle and starring Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, and Jonny Lee Miller.
“The great thing about what I suppose you’d call the Trainspotting industry and the fact that it’s such a cult thing is that it renews all the time,” Welsh said. “Every five or six years there’s a new bunch of students that come in when Channel 4 shows the movie late at night. There’s always a big spike in sales for the book in the days after.”
Welsh published Skagboys, a prequel to Trainspotting, in 2012, and revisited the characters from his most famous novel in books including Porno, The Blade Artist, and Dead Men’s Trousers.
The characters will also return in a planned 2024 musical adaptation.
“Aye, a proper musical, with singing and dancing and shit,” Welsh told the Observer. “[Producer] Phil McIntyre had been asking me for years to do it, and I always said, ‘Nah, I’m not doing that.’ Then I thought, if I don’t do it, someone like Andrew Lloyd Webber will do it when I’m in an urn above the fireplace, so I might as well.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
