Marty Mcflies again as Back To The Future hits the West End
HOLY rock ’n’ roll! Back To The Future is being turned into a stage musical and will open in the West End next year, the 30th anniversary of the film’s release.
The movie, which made michael J. Fox a star, has been under consideration for theatre treatment for a decade.
Bob Gale, who wrote the 1985 film and its two sequels, said he and the film’s director Robert Zemeckis discussed the project with various theatrical folk, but nothing clicked until they met London-based director Jamie Lloyd and producer Colin ingram.
‘We met Brits, and we met americans, but we decided on the Brits — Jamie and Colin — because they’re seeing our material through slightly different cultural eyes,’ Gale explained. He added that many movies that are turned into musicals don’t work from the get-go — Catch me if You Can flopped on Broadway and the recent adaptation of Big Fish went off incredibly fast. ‘What made them think they could turn those movies into stage musicals?’ Gale wondered.
He said that with Back To The Future ‘you’ve got a main character who wants to be a rock musician’, which is a help. Fox, famously, plays marty mcFly: a high school wannabe guitarist who lives in suburban Twin Pines — a sort of everytown USa — with a father (Crispin Glover) who has no backbone and a mother (Lea Thompson) who’s a lush.
Local, supposedly mad, scientist Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) has created a time machine out of a DeLorean car that, when it hits 88mph, travels back in time, transporting marty from 1985 to 1955, where he learns how his parents became the way they are.
The most highly-charged scenes involved his mother, unwittingly trying to get amorous with her son, which was considered too racy for some studios three decades ago. ‘it’s about a boy who teaches his father to be a man, and his mother to be who she really wants to be. and he gets to deal with his own issues, too,’ Gale said.
He and Zemeckis have written a script that
follows the film’s storyline to a degree, ‘but not slavishly’. ‘The script stands on its own,’ he said. ‘It’s a different version of the same story.’
Lloyd has also been helping to shape the show and will direct two workshops: the first in Los Angeles in July, for producers at Universal Stage Productions and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment; and a second in London in August, for Ingram’s London colleagues and theatre owners.
The movie opens with The Power Of Love by Huey Lewis And The News. That song will be in the show, along with Johnny B. Goode, Earth Angel and Mr Sandman. Alan Silvestri, who wrote the original score for the films, will collaborate with Glen Ballard on some original songs. Ingram said the show will stick to the same time periods as the first film. ‘You can’t mess with history,’ he joked.
Andrew Willis, who designed the Hackney Wick skateboarding park, has signed on as a consultant and will help the cast with their skateboarding skills.
The creative team will also include set designer Soutra Gilmour, lighting expert Jon Clark, and illusionist Paul Kieve.
‘Now all we have to find is a young man to play Marty,’ Ingram said. ‘He needs to be a guitarist, a singer, an actor — and good looking. We’ll provide the time machine.’