CREDITS TRAINSPOTTING, 1996 dir: Danny Boyle Ewan McGregor Ewen Bremner Jonny Lee Miller Robert Carlyle Kelly MacDonald

“Choose your future. Choose life. But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin? ”

In a perfect world, all movies without chariot races would be kept down to 90 minutes max.

The proof is here in Danny Boyle's high-speed whizz through the themes of Irvine Welsh's cult novel.

Although the movie is set in Edinburgh (there's a brief section filmed in Bayswater and West Kensington in London), like the team's previous Shallow Grave it was filmed – apart from a little scene-setting at the beginning – almost entirely in Glasgow, a city which offers film makers all the breaks.

Trainspotting: legging it down Princes Street, Edinburgh

The opening scene is the only glimpse of the real Edinburgh, with Renton (Ewan McGregor) and co raiding John Menzies Bookstore and legging it away down Princes Street to the Calton Street Bridge, where Renton is hit by the car.

Trainspotting: Renton runs in front of the car: Calton Street Bridge, Edinburgh

From here on it’s Glasgow. The studio filming utilised a disused cigarette factory (it provides 30 of the film’s 50 locations). The down-at-heel pub where the American tourist gets done over, and everyone gathers after the trial, is the old Social Club of the factory.

The football match filmed at the Firhill Health Complex, Hopehill Road, north from Maryhill Road, North Kelvin (Underground: St Georges Cross). The park where Renton and Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) discuss the career of Sean Connery and shoot the dog’s behind is Rouken Glen Park, Rouken Glen Park Road, Thornliebank, south of the city centre on the line from Central Station. The park was also the site of the titular grave in Shallow Grave.

Trainspotting: talking Bond and shooting the dog's bum: Rouken Glen Park, Thornliebank

The cafe where Renton and Spud (Ewen Bremner) share a milkshake before speeding is Cafe d’Jaconelli, 570 Maryhill Road, in North Kelvin not far from the Firhill Health Complex.

Trainspotting: Renton and Spud share a milkshake: Cafe D'Jaconelli, Glasgow

A little further up the road on the left is Queen Margaret Drive. A few minutes down the road you can find the galleried bar where Begbie (Robert Carlyle) entertains the crowd with his pool story and demonstrates how not to dispose of a beermug. It’s Crosslands, 182 Queen Margaret Drive.

Trainspotting: Begbie slings the beermug into the crowd: Crosslands, Queen Margaret Drive, Glasgow

The nightclub where Renton meets ballsy schoolgirl Diane (Kelly MacDonald) was Volcano, 15 Benalder Street, close to Kelvinhall Station. You won’t be so lucky .The nightclub has since been demolished. The rear of the club is the grey building facing Dumbarton Road. The railway station where Tommy tries vainly to whip up some enthusiasm for the Scottish countryside is Rannoch Moor, on the West Highland line up toward Fort William.

Trainspotting: Renton's London flat: Talgarth Road, West Kensington

Renton’s West London flat is 78A Talgarth Road at North End Road, opposite West Kensington tube station.

Trainspotting: the drug deal: Royal Eagle Hotel, Craven Road, Bayswater (before its renovation)

The Edinburgh boys might be expected to fetch up in King’s Cross when they find themselves with two kilos of skag to offload, but it’s amid the shabby anonymity of Bayswater, that they make a cool £16,000. Sick Boy leads the “small-time wasters with an accidental big deal” out of Smallbrook Mews across Craven Road, in a parody of the Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover, to the Royal Eagle 26-30 Craven Road, Bayswater, where they meet dealer Keith Allen.

Empty and dilapidated at the time of filming, the five grand Victorian houses which make up the hotel have been totally renovated and spruced up into quite a classy establishment. You can stay there, but not in the drug deal room, which was filmed back in Glasgow, in the George Hotel, 235 Buchanan Street not far from Central Station.