Have we finally reached Peak Paddington? The Young Peruvian bear’s spectacular renaissance hasn’t just yielded a trilogy of hit films: there’s a TV series for younger kids, and 2024 saw the opening of official immersive attraction the Paddington Bear Experience. A really banging computer game aside, it’s hard to see what else there is to do with the character beyond ‘more films’.
Apart from, of course, a big splashy West End musical. Which we’re now getting: West End super-producer Sonia Friedman has done the honours, assembling a crack team headed by playwright Jessica Swale doing the book and kids’ author and McFly member Tom Fletcher on songs, all directed by Luke Shepherd, who did such a good job with the smash revival of Starlight Express.
We don’t officially know a huge amount about the show beyond that, but cast is now confirmed as Timi Akinyosade (Tony), Amy Booth-Steel (Lady Sloane), Tarinn Callender (Grant), Delilah Bennett-Cardy (Judy Brown), Adrian Der Gregorian (Mr. Brown), Tom Edden (Mr Curry), Brenda Edwards (Tanya), Amy Ellen Richardson (Mrs. Brown), Victoria Hamilton-Barritt (Millicent Clyde), Teddy Kempner (Mr Gruber), Bonnie Langford (Mrs Bird).
There are two major points you can deduce from this. The first is that it seems fairly likely the musical will be a straight up remake of the first (2014) Paddington film – evil taxidermist Millicent Clyde is a character that was invented for the movie, and Victoria Hamilton-Barritt (who plays her on stage) is probably the biggest name out of the cast. We were already promised that Paddington the Musical would be the story of how he came to London again – but it seems likely it will specifically adhere to the film version.
The second: where’s Paddington in the cast list? Rumours abound that he’ll be played by a puppet, but why would you keep this a secret? There are various reasons, but one might be that a certain famous actor who does his voice in the films, cartoon and Immersive Experience is also on board albeit in pre-recorded form. We’d put a tenner on it being Ben Whishaw, basically, although that comes with the caveat that somebody else would surely have to sing for him live. Whatever the case, all shall be revealed soon.
