The Guardian view on new musicals: sex, drugs and song ‘n’ dance | Editorial

Singin’ in the Rain it will never be, but Trainspotting the Musical is not as improbable as it seems. The yellow-brick road from cult novel to film to blockbuster musical is so well trodden that it was only a matter of time before an all-singing, all-dancing adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s gritty 1993 novel about a bunch of heroin addicts in Edinburgh hit London’s West End. Danny Boyle’s 1996 film, which celebrated its 30th anniversary last month, had already established Trainspotting as a story with a soundtrack. The musical will have specially written songs too.

From Oliver! and Les Misérables to Matilda, Wicked and The Devil Wears Prada, many of the biggest hitters in the West End today started out as books. Even the global hit Hamilton was inspired by a hefty 800-page biography of the 18th-century American founding father Alexander Hamilton. Last autumn, Paddington the Musical joined their ranks. A musical version of another hit novel about the 1990s (although published in 2009) – David Nicholls’s One Day – opened in Edinburgh this month. The romance between Emma and Dexter might be more typical musical fare than the drug-fuelled antics of Trainspotting’s Renton, Sick Boy and Spud, but that doesn’t mean that the latter don’t belong in a musical. Welsh has revealed that this latest incarnation will “broaden” to include contemporary addictions to mobile phones and the internet.

An opera about the opioid crisis might seem equally unlikely, but this is the subject of The Galloping Cure from John Berry, former artistic director of English National Opera, premiering at this year’s Edinburgh international festival. “If opera wants to own the zeitgeist in the performing arts then it needs to commission stories that have bigger impact,” Berry said recently, in remarks slightly less widely reported than Timothée Chalamet’s opera snub. A form sometimes disdained as elitist actually has more recently chosen some surprising themes – including the life of Anna Nicole Smith or the Jerry Springer talkshow.

Social realism might seem a bigger ask for such a gloriously daft art form as musicals. But they have often dealt with troubled times, from revolutionary France to Weimar Berlin. Modern hits like Dear Evan Hansen address mental health and the dangers of social media. After a post-pandemic musicals boom, David Hare grumbled that “they have become the leylandii of theatre, strangling everything in their path”. Ironically, his 1975 rock romp Teeth ’n’ Smiles has been revived in London this week. But he has a point, especially regarding the dominance of jukebox musicals (Mamma Mia!) and adaptations.

Musicals are expensive showboats and rebooting established favourites is a safer bet than an entirely original creation. There are exceptions: the award-winning Six, about Henry VIII’s wives, was dreamed up by Cambridge University students and started out at the Edinburgh fringe in 2017.

Whether an adaptation, a reworking or a new work, musicals can stay in tune with the times. Trainspotting’s Renton is Oliver Twist. Emma and Dexter in One Day are Tony and Maria (West Side Story), but more relatable. No matter how dark the material, musical theatre offers escapism from the horrors of the moment. As Yip Harburg, lyricist of The Wizard of Oz, put it: “Words make you think thoughts, music makes you feel a feeling, but a song makes you feel a thought.” Choose songs. Choose joy. Choose musicals.

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