A ‘Beaches’ musical is coming to London this year

… but without any of the songs from the movie.

Just when you thought that the West End couldn’t get any gayer. According to Entertainment Tonight, a production of Beaches the Musical is due to make its way to London this year. The musical has been making waves over in the breeding grounds for American theatre – Virginia’s Signature Theatre and Chicago’s Drury Lane Theatre. Now it’s heading over to the UK to work out the show’s kinks.

Unfortunately, the show will have little to do with the Bette Midler cult film which has had audiences in bits since 1988 and is instead based on the book which inspired the film. The novel’s author Iris Rainer Dart told ET that they’re “just listening, refining, redoing and seeing which songs work and which ones don’t.”

Since the show has little to do with the film, it won’t be featuring any of the beloved songs featured in the film, from ‘The Glory of Love’ to ‘I’ve Still Got My Health’, and will only feature a small part of ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ as a nod to the film adaptation. The show will instead feature original songs by Iris Rainer Dart and newcomer David Austin. The plot will still follow a friendship between friends over 30 years who stumble in and out of each other’s lives. 

The show is said to be aiming for a Broadway transfer, provided the London run is successful. If it were to make its way to Broadway, it’d be the third late ’80s/early ’90s film to hit the global theatrical capital, after Groundhog Day in 2017 (which garnered seven Tony nominations) and Pretty Woman: The Musical which opened last year. Cyndi Lauper is also rumoured to be working on a musical adaptation of Working Girl, based on the 1988 movie. 

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https://qxmagazine.com/2019/01/this-clip-of-bette-midler-talking-about-crack-is-such-a-mood/