Overview
- Press-night reviews from London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket were largely negative, criticizing the production’s pacing, tone and failure to translate the novel and film’s energy into a musical.
- Critics singled out the score, saying a few familiar hits are swamped by new songs by Irvine Welsh and DJ Stephen McGuinness that reviewers found mawkish or inert.
- Lewis Kidd stepped into the lead role of Renton after the originally cast actor was injured in rehearsal, and reviewers praised Kidd’s presence while noting uneven performances elsewhere.
- Multiple reviews described the staging, choreography and set as underpowered and broadly designed for touring rather than a polished West End spectacle.
- The adaptation’s clearer focus on Thatcher-era politics, family and religion alters the story’s emphasis, a change that critics say raises the production’s reputational risk as it continues its Haymarket run and prepares to tour to Edinburgh.