Taking a look Beyond Trainspotting
Published in 1993 Irvine Welsh’s debut book made quite the literary impact with its story of Renton a young man almost subsumed by Glaswegian class A drug culture trying to get himself clean despite the influence of friends unable to resist the lure of the drug scene. But it was the 1996 film that really made an impact arriving at the height of Brit Pop and a time when youth culture was something to celebrate. Beyond Trainspotting : The World of Irvine Welsh is a documentary that looks at the book & film’s impact via the author himself and those who loved through the era.
Beyond Trainspotting in the 1990’s
Trainspotting alongside Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels were the pre –eminent films that led the British film movement and combined with the sea change in a stale music scene that was brushed aside with rave culture but especially Brit Pop and often personified by people as varied as Chris Evans to Damien Hirst & Tracey Emin to Paul Gascoigne to the ladettes of the time as well as TV shows like SM:TV, Ab Fab & TFI Friday and groudberaking magazine Loaded. What a decade to be alive. No social media, no phones recording everything, just the sheer joy of the hedonistic moment and an era we’ll never see again.
The documentary from directors Ray Burdis and Ian Jeffries doesn’t quite capture that era as might be hoped but it’s not for want of trying with it focussing on Welsh’s influence and impact on culture that saw his successive books snapped up for film adaptations but to far less impact than his debut novel.
The World of Irvine Welsh sees him talk quite openly about the influences on his own work that saw him grow up in the tenements of Leith and his own personal tragedies often reworked into the at times dark and bleak humour of his books ( that baby crawling across a ceiling in Trainspotting is just one of several images that director Danny Boyle’s film of the novel burnt into audiences retinas).
The contributors and analysis….
The directors have assembled a number of famous faces to discuss the influence most notably Trainspotting producer Andrew MacDonald, Creation records head honcho Alan McGee but there’s also contributions from Iggy Pop, the films leads (except Robert Carlyle unfortunately) plus Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespsie, Happy Monday’s Rowetta and presenter Gail Porter. Interspersed with this is archive footage of Welsh living it large at the height of his fame (though there does seem to a be lot of hangers on to his new found and well deserved celebrity).
Beyond Trainspotting The World of Irvine Welsh though not particularly critical is a reminder of just what a terrific decade the 1990’s were and for those unlucky enough not to have been there it’s a glimpse at what you missed.
related feature : Revisiting ‘Boston Kickout’ (1995) : Director Paul Hills & actor Marc Warren talk about this forgotten British gem
related feature : Trainspotting – 4K UHD /BLU-RAY steel book
We chatted to Gail Porter about the documentary and the 1990’s….
Here’s the Beyond Trainspotting : The World of Irvine Welsh trailer…..
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