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The opening titles from 1996’s Trainspotting are ingrained deeply in my brain, along with the opening bars of Iggy Pop’s Lust For Life which blast out from a tucked away corner of my cranium. These reference points are released as I board a train to Liverpool.
I’m off to watch PORNO with my sister. That doesn’t sound great, does it? But that’s the plan. Irvine Welsh’s PORNO is on a tour of the North, landing tonight at Liverpool Olympia on a fine autumnal Merseyside evening. This is a perfect venue for a production of this genre, with musty dusty corridors and a performance space steeped in history. A theatregoer sat in the row behind me asked his friends, “Have you been for a piss in here? They’ll kill you them bogs.” An ideal setting for a Trainspotting sequel.
Set 15 years after the original narcotic-infused Trainspotting, in PORNO (adapted here by Davie Carswell) we discover the fates of four friends bound together by blood, drugs and greed. I’m pleased to report that the language throughout was as brilliantly vulgar as you’d hope for – and expect. Meanwhile, when a series like this has such a cult following, I imagine it’s a daunting task for actors taking on such iconic characters. But this ensemble gave it their all as the ageing bunch of ragtag rascals we know and love.
Scott Kyle offers a good account of Renton and Kevin Murphy is suitably heartbreaking as Spud, the moral compass who guides this tale through the madness. My sister, who’s never seen Trainspotting, turned to me at one point and said “I can’t understand what he’s saying.” I replied, “Yes, that’s Spud.” Chris Gavin is perfectly brutal and expertly intimidating as Begby and James McAnerney steals the show as Sick Boy, blessed with the best lines and seducing the audience via asides that transport you to his Port Sunshine pub. In addition, Jasmine Main gives a brilliant performance as fiery flirt Lizzie, with many a stern emotive monologue in her locker, and retired former copper father Knox, portrayed by Jim Brown, leaves a memorable scene etched on the mind involving self-pleasure and Winston Churchill.
Walking out of the theatre on the long expedition back into the city, my sister and I came to the mutual conclusion that we always end up on a row with a person of interest. Said person this evening heckled the performers with a series of burps, sneezing fits and goose-like noises that pushed the blue rinse brigade sat in front (who I was surprised to see at a play called PORNO) out of the door and on their not-so-merry-way midway through the second half.
Even with a burping heckler, PORNO is a great night out. Perhaps not as gripping and gruesome as its famous predecessor, but a proper hoot all the same.
