Irvine Welsh hopes Trainspotting musical will return after UK tour cancelled
The Edinburgh-born author claimed the show was playing to ‘packed houses’ in London
Irvine Welsh has expressed his hope that his Trainspotting musical will return after claiming a UK tour was cancelled because it was too expensive.
The author insisted the show - which was panned by critics - was "playing every night to packed houses" in London and receiving standing ovations.
However, he said the discounted tickets on offer were not possible elsewhere in the UK because of accommodation, travel and staging costs.
Trainspotting The Musical was due to run in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dunfermline and Glasgow as part of a five-month UK tour.
However, this was axed following “lower than expected ticket sales”, which the producers blamed on the “current economic climate”.
Appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Sunday, Welsh was asked if the musical would be coming to the city.
“Unfortunately, it won't be,” the Edinburgh-born writer said. “We had to cancel the tour because we just can't afford it.
"It's a very hard thing to tell the cast - brilliant cast, just out the [Royal] Conservatoire [of Scotland] most of them.
"They're still playing in the Theatre Royal in the West End of London now, and they're playing every night to packed houses and they're playing every night to standing ovations, and they say, 'Well, why can't we take the show on the road?'
"Well, the only reason you're playing to packed houses is because in London we don't have any transport costs because you all live here, accommodation costs because you all live here, so we can discount the show.
"The way the economy is now, no working class people are going to pay £100 for a theatre ticket, so we can discount it. I think we've discounted it to about 60 quid, and that's the price point that people just rush in.
"So we're packing them in down in London, but we can't do that outside of London.
"You can't sort of charge people in London 60 quid, and then start saying to everybody outside of London you have to pay 100 quid to see this. They can't afford it.
"We've got 30 cast and we've got maybe about another 10 sort of technical people setting up, and you can't afford it. You just can't afford the hotels to put all these people up in, you can't afford the cost of dismantling a huge set and storing it and then reassembling it in all these places."
Mr Welsh said there had been a "further kind of quantum fall in the economic power of people" in the last six months.
"The West End of London just suddenly struggled, and there's shows being cancelled all over the place and being truncated,” he said.
“You can see now all the regional theatres are putting on stand ups with low costs, kind of one man and a microphone, and they're doing this increasingly.
"It'll only be, I think, the big established shows that will be playing in theatres for a while."
He added: "I don't know when we'll see it again. Hopefully we'll bring it back at some point when things improve, but right now it just doesn't pay, basically."
The musical is due to continue its planned run in London until September 5.
Cast member Kieran Brown previously said the tour was “just not selling unfortunately”, adding: “If Edinburgh of all places is stuck on 19 per cent sales - you know you’re f***ed!”
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