Broadway Spotting

A cleaned-up stage adaptation of Trainspotting, featuring American actors, is planned for Broadway later this year. Irvine Welsh's novel hit the headlines when the 1996 film, starring Ewan McGregor and Robert Carlyle, became a controversial success. The book had already been adapted for the London stage prior to the film's release, but it was the lurid imagery of the movie that assured both the book and Welsh notoriety. The new Broadway version is to do without the stomach-turning sequences featuring brimming toilet-bowls and needles plunged in limbs. The strong Scottish accents are also to be given the axe and the production will be using American actors attempting a slight Scottish brogue - let's hope they won't be taking lessons from Robin Williams' Mrs Doubtfire!