David Bowie‘s secret final project has been revealed after being unearthed in the late musician’s study.
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In 2016, Bowie shared his final creative offering in the ‘Blackstar‘ album, which was released only days before his passing and saw him confront his own mortality amid an 18-month battle with cancer.
Now, it’s emerged that his final months were spent working on a separate project, described in his notes as an “18th century musical” titled The Spectator, details of which he kept under wraps, and its existence remained unknown even to his closest collaborators until the notes were discovered locked in his study in 2016.
The room was always locked, accessible only to Bowie and his personal assistant, so all of his handwritten notes were left undisturbed until archivists began cataloguing his belongings. They have now been donated to the V&A Museum, with the rest of Bowie’s archive.
They will be available for fans to view when the David Bowie Centre opens at the V&A East Storehouse in Hackney Wick on September 13, with The Last Dinner Party and Nile Rodgers curating special exhibitions.
Along with 90,000 items related to the iconic artist, the collection will trace Bowie’s “creative processes as a musical innovator, cultural icon, and advocate for self-expression and reinvention”, and have been acquired by the V&A through the David Bowie Estate, the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Warner Music Group.
Photos of the musician’s notes shared with the BBC show Bowie was highly interested in the development of art and culture in 18th Century London, and was also drawn to stories about criminal gangs and notorious thief “Honest” Jack Sheppard.
Had he completed the musical, The Spectator the musical would have realised one of Bowie’s lifelong ambitions. Speaking in 2002, he touched on his ambitions to write for theatre, telling BBC Radio 4‘s John Wilson: “I guess I could have just written for theatre in my living room – but I think the intent was to have a pretty big audience.”
Shorlty before he died, Bowie wrote Lazarus the musical with Enda Walsh, which was was inspired by Walter Tevis’ novel The Man Who Fell to Earth, the 1976 movie adaptation of which Bowie starred in.
The show was first performed during a six-week stint in New York in late 2015 and early 2016 and then moved to London’s Kings Cross Theatre from November 2016 to January 2017.
Songs from the musical were later released as a posthumous album and also turned into a VR experience.
