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ScotlandsFest: Choose Life Choose Leith – Trainspotting on Location

ScotlandsFest: Choose Life Choose Leith – Trainspotting on Location

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About This Event

Tim Bell will guide a walking tour around Leith locations featured in the film adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s *Trainspotting*, presented as part of ScotlandsFest, the Luath Press literary festival running alongside the Edinburgh Fringe. The route explores key sites from both the book and the film, with Bell offering commentary on how the area has transformed since the 1990s. The walk commences at 10.30am on Thursday 27 August 2026, with participants meeting at St Columba’s by the Castle Scottish Episcopal Church. Ticket prices range from £6.13 to £11.55.

Join Tim Bell at ScotlandsFest, Luath Press's literary festival during the Edinburgh Fringe.

Set firmly in unglamorous 1980s Leith, Trainspotting has burst through stage, film and now musical genres, dodging the forces of orthodoxy and censorship. But is it just scurrilous punk, junk, transgressional entertainment that got lucky? Bell reveals how this hard-to-read and on-location book tells truths that need to be told. And how it’s everyone’s business. Bell is the ideal guide: author of Choose Life, Choose Leith and living in Leith since 1980, he brings street-level wisdom, erudite research, and a good dash of humour to the Trainspotting phenomenon.

A great study from a serious Trainspotting scholar. IRVINE WELSH

~

ScotlandsFest is Luath Press' annual festival during the Edinburgh fringe, celebrating the vibrant literary, cultural and political landscape of Scotland. There are many Scotlands, so many ideas of what Scotland is and can be. Each of us carries our own vision, our own experiences and our own perspectives of our nation. At ScotlandsFest, we celebrate these many Scotlands as seen through the eyes of the poet, the artist and the scholar.

Whether you live here or are visiting, make the most of your time at the Fringe. Discover ScotlandsFest. Big thinking in a small country – thought-provoking discussions, immersive storytelling, history, poetry, politics and more.

Description supplied by the event organiser.

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Frequently asked questions

ScotlandsFest: Choose Life Choose Leith – Trainspotting on Location takes place on Thursday, 27 August 2026 at 10:30.

ScotlandsFest: Choose Life Choose Leith – Trainspotting on Location is held at St Columba's by the Castle Scottish Episcopal Church in Edinburgh (14 Johnston Terrace, Edinburgh, EH1 2PW).

Tickets for ScotlandsFest: Choose Life Choose Leith – Trainspotting on Location range from £6.13 to £11.55. Live prices and availability are shown on Eventbrite.

Tickets for ScotlandsFest: Choose Life Choose Leith – Trainspotting on Location can be booked via Eventbrite using the "Check Tickets & Live Prices" button on this page, which opens the official booking site in a new tab.

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