Trainspotting: John Humphrys reads Ewan McGregor's classic monologue on Radio 4 Today
'I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got... Radio 4?'
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The classic opening lines to Danny Boyle's 1996 film Trainspotting, now resurrected in a sequel taking place ten years down the line; in a new time, with its characters forced to look back over whether they've moved with those times, or stubbornly resisted them.
To mark the debut of T2 Trainspotting into cinemas, John Humphrys surprised Radio 4 listeners by delivering his own take on the classic 'Choose Life' monologue Ewan McGregor's Renton delivers in the original, though it also receives its own updated version in the sequel.
Of course, being the more genteel medium of radio, Humphrys dropped the monologue's splattering of swearwords; himself choosing the softer "Choose a big telly" over "Choose a f*cking big television".
Another alteration, of course, was that Humphrys' version didn't end with "Who needs reasons when you've got heroin", but "Who needs reasons when you've got Radio 4".
Set 20 years after the previous film, T2 Trainspotting sees Ewan McGregor's Renton return to Scotland to make amends with his old friends, Spud (Ewen Bremmer) and Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), while trying to avoid the wrath of Begbie (Robert Carlyle), who was recently released from prison.
You can listen to the monologue below.
T2 Trainspotting hits UK cinemas 27 January.
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