Lazarus, the stage musical featuring the songs of David Bowie which was co-written by the late musician and Irish playwright Enda Walsh is to open in London this autumn following its sell-out run in New York.
The musical was conceived as a sequel to the novel The Man Who Fell to Earth, the film version of which starred Bowie as an alien. The show premiered in New York Theatre workshop in Manhattan just a few weeks before the singer's death in January.
The musical features Bowie's poignant final single, Lazarus, which was released two days before his death, and features the lyric, “Look up here, I’m in heaven”.
Walsh had said that he had been aware “from the very beginning” how seriously ill Bowie was. “We all just got on with it,” he told the Irish Examiner recently.
“He was an extremely generous, very, very funny man. And to make something like Lazarus, which sort of knocked people, which had people going, ‘What the hell is this?’ That was amazing. He wanted to push the form of it and how it was going to come at the audience".
The production received rave notices from critics with the The New York Times hailing it as a “great-sounding, great-looking, and mind-numbing new musical”, while Rolling Stone praised it as a "surrealistic tour de force."
New York City's mayor's office declared the final day of the play's run in January as 'David Bowie Day' in honour of the late musician.
Lazarus will run at the King's Cross Theatre in London from late October until January and will feature several cast members from the original New York production including Michael C Hall, who starred in the TV series Dexter and Six Feet Under, Michael Esper and Sophia Anne Caruso.
