Lost classics can be a real treat to work on.

On receiving the brief for Rosemary Tonks’s spiky comedy, The Bloater, I was hooked (excuse the pun) for two reasons. Firstly, the title. It felt suitably intriguing, and visually incongruous, both repellent and playful. Second was the endorsement by Stewart Lee, not only the affirmed 41st best stand-up comic ever, but fellow Midlander and, in my humble opinion, all-round genius – of sorts.

Dead Men’s Trousers is essentially the next chapter in the Trainspotting story, dragging our favourite characters into the Brexit era. Renton is the jaded manager of a number of Internationally acclaimed DJs. Sick-Boy, as usual, has his hands in whatever sordid deal he can find. Spud is still Spud. And bizarrely, Begbie has reinvented himself as a celebrated artist.

Each character has an agenda – the friends stalk each other, deceive each other, use each other, corrupt each other. It’s an often hilarious, painful, yet surprisingly moving ‘dance of death’. An idea that lead us to our cover – a re-enactment of Michael Wolgemut’s 1493 woodcut ‘Danse Macabre’. With added trousers.