Director Adam Spreadbury-Maher Helms The Play That Inspired Danny Boyle's Film, 'Trainspotting Live'

In between the 1993 publication of Scottish author Irvine Welsh's genre-defining novel Trainspotting and the 1996 release of director Danny Boyle's acclaimed screen adaptation, the story of a loose-knit group of Edinburgh friends and frenemies feeding their various needs with drugs, sex, raves, sport or random explosions of violence made its way to the stage.

Well, the term 'stage' is used loosely, because something with the raw, rude energy of Trainspotting couldn't really be restricted to the proscenium arch, could it?

This is what Adelaide Festival audiences - and eventually theatregoers around the country - will experience when the UK-made immersive production, Trainspotting Live, arrives on our shores. Credited with inspiring Boyle to bring Trainspotting to the screen, the show, which has already been staged in warehouses, underground car parks and other unconventional spaces around the world over the last couple of decades, will be presented at the Station Underground venue.

"It's really exciting to put theatre in non-traditional spaces," says the production's director, Adam Spreadbury-Maher. "They are hostile environments that are not meant to have theatre in them but you've already got the audience on-side - to them, it's already interesting, arresting, and they have to pay attention."

Indeed, Trainspotting demands more of its audience than simply attention. This is an immersive, interactive production – indeed, one of the pioneers of the form popularised by companies such as Punchdrunk and Dream Think Speak – that thrusts the theatregoer into the midst of it all.

"Danny Boyle is responsible for some of the first very clear, strong and powerful cinema memories I have."

"It's such a different way to experience theatre and a nice way for people who are familiar with it to experience Trainspotting," says Spreadbury-Maher. "It adds another dimension to the piece where you think you know Trainspotting but seeing it in a live immersive performance adds another layer to the piece.

Spreadbury-Maher has been attached to Trainspotting as director for the last few years, overseeing its evolution from a sprawling theatrical work with a 25-strong cast and a two-and-a-half-hour running time down to a more streamlined 75-minute production with a cast of seven. And as both a fan of Boyle's film and an enthusiast of what a live theatrical experience can deliver, he was thrilled by the prospect of taking on the project and being able to "revisit and rework and refine it over time".

"I watched Trainspotting when I was 13 or 14 and Danny Boyle is responsible for some of the first very clear, strong and powerful cinema memories I have," he says. "But the play predates the film, and as a theatre-maker I was also able to look to the novel, to Irvine Welsh's original writing. That's not to say I don't think the film is extraordinary but what you can do on stage is very different. There's a different contract with the audience, so what can we do that's more immediate and more visceral? It opened up a whole new world of opportunities. And even the most seasoned experiential theatregoer comes out of Trainspotting going 'Whoa'."

Trainspotting is very much back in vogue at the moment, due in no small part to Boyle and his cast reuniting for the big-screen sequel T2 Trainspotting, opening in cinemas February 23. (Spreadbury-Maher calls it "brilliant".) And this renewed buzz has seen a new generation of fans intrigued by what Trainspotting has to say.

"To revisit it in 2017, particularly with what has happened in Europe with the Brexit referendum and in America with Trump, the music may have changed a little bit but not much else has," he says. "I think it's a treat for fans of the novel and the film, but there's something there for a new generation - in London and Edinburgh we were getting audiences members as young as 16 or 17. They hadn't seen the film or read the novel but had only heard the buzz about this show."

Trainspotting Live plays 17 Feb — 19 Mar at Station Underground, part of Adelaide Fringe, 22 Mar — 13 Apr at Fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne, and 19 — 22 Apr at Brisbane Powerhouse.