IT’S BEEN OVER 20 years since the iconic tale of heroin addiction, urban poverty and male friendship first hit cinemas, so anticipation for Trainspotting’s sequel has had two decades to build.

The world’s first introduction to Mark Renton and his group of drug-addled friends in 1996 resulted in not only an Academy Award nomination but a toilet scene that is one of the most famous cinematic moments in history.

This time around, Danny Boyle returns to direct a film adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s Porno, while Welsh himself makes another appearance as opium suppository dealer Mikey Forrester.

The entire original cast will also return to play Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor), “Sickboy” (Jonny Lee Miller), “Spud” (Ewen Bremner) and the psychopathic Francis “Franco” Begbie (Robert Carlyle), who has just been released from prison.

Although Ewan McGregor originally worried about whether he ‘was Scottish enough anymore’ for the role, told The Guardian that the process of filming united him immediately with Mark Renton:

It all came back. And there’s a moment where I have to come up through rafters and it became like coming out of the toilet in the first film. But only inside me. It wasn’t written that way. Danny didn’t say, ‘Do it like that,’ it just happened. It was like a direct connection to something I did 20 years ago. That happened all the time, because Renton is me, and I am him.

Two decades later, Renton has different suggestions however, in an updated version of his infamous monologue:

Choose life. Choose Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and hope that someone, somewhere cares. Choose looking up old flames, wishing you’d done it all differently. And choose watching history repeat itself. Choose your future. Choose reality TV, slut shaming, revenge porn. Choose a zero hour contract, a two hour journey to work.

Just a few weeks ago, it was leaked (and consequently confirmed) that Limerick’s The Rubberbandits will appear on the soundtrack this time around – the original was so popular it is still being produced on vinyl.

In an interview with 2fm, Blindboy admitted that Danny Boyle was a fan of theirs, and in typical Rubberbandits style said that “the song that they chose, Dad’s Best Friend, is just a class rave tune”.

Want to see if T2 Trainspotting lives up to its cult status original? It’s on general release from Sony Pictures from January 27th.