Eighties pop icon Boy George who blazed a trail across the decade’s music scene with his band Culture Club, is busy writing a West End musical. The work, entitled Taboo after the notorious London club which was a favourite of the gay singer in his youth, focuses on a heterosexual love story set in the nightclub.
Fifteen new songs have already been written for the £500,000 production which is scheduled to open in October. The show is expected to feature roles based on leading figures from the New Romantic movement including the singer Marilyn, Visage lead singer Steve Strange and the late transvestite performance artist and owner of the club, Leigh Bowery.
Although a 19-year-old Boy George will be represented in the musical, the singer himself, now 40, will not take to the stage. He is currently presiding over auditions to find look-alikes for himself and other key roles.
“It’s a celebration of a piece of London history, when London was leading the world in terms of lifestyle and fashion,” says opera director Christopher Renshaw who conceived the musical and is also to direct it. “You will get a very strong feeling of decadence and glamour.”
It is an unusual departure for Renshaw who is more accustomed to working with the likes of Pavarotti and Dame Joan Sutherland than former pop icons.
The show will open at Notre Dame Hall, an occasional clubbing venue off Leicester Square next to the old Taboo. Rather than be mounted in traditional West End theatre style, it will be designed to echo a nightclub atmosphere with 350 people seated around tables.
Organisers are hoping the production, which will feature just two of Culture Club’s old hits – Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? and Karma Chameleon – will become a cult hit in the mould of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
