Edinburgh – National Museum of Scotland (Signed Trainspotting Script)

Another poor quality photo from Edinburgh, but I can’t keep typing that….. This item is in the collections of the National Museum of Scotland, although it doesn’t appear in their on-line database. Or at least it doesn’t for any search of “Trainspotting” or “McGregor”. Their database is one of the more challenging that I’ve used, most of the exhibits I’ve tried to hunt aren’t in it, although they clearly own them. Fortunately the museum has an entire separate page on their web-site about this script to confirm to me that they do actually own it.

Trainspotting is an iconic film and it was filmed in Edinburgh, with this script being donated by the actor Ewan McGregor. He also donated the poster at the same time in 2007, both of them being displayed in the Scotland : A Changing Nation exhibition at the museum.

The museum say about the book that the film was based on:

“Irvine Welsh’s debut novel, Trainspotting, was released in 1993 and depicts an Edinburgh far-removed from the quaint, historic, picture postcard image familiar around the world, with stories of drug-addiction, sex, violence and poverty. Written with phonetic vernacular dialogue and located around the then gritty port of Leith and the estates of Muirhouse, the book drew on critical acclaim and word of mouth to become both hugely successful and highly influential.”