EXCLUSIVE: John Tiffany’s stage musical adaptation of award-winning 2018 feature Wild Rose could be headed to the London’s West End, following its critically acclaimed debut in Edinburgh.
Faye Ward of Fable Pictures, who produced the original film, lead theatre producer Patrick Daly at Caledonia Productions and Gavin Kalin at Totally Theatre Productions, who is also a producer on the show, are in negotiations for a West End run.
Ward, who is executive producer on the stage production with Nia Janis of Playful Productions, revealed the West End plans to Deadline on the fringes of the SCAD Lacoste Film Festival in France in June.
“Talks are underway, and the hope is that we can bring it too London in the not-too-distant future,” she said.
The stage production debuted earlier this year with a critically acclaimed, extended six-week run at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, which broke box office records for the venue.
Tony and Olivier-award-winning theater director Tiffany previously enjoyed success in the West End with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which won nine Oliviers in 2017 before heading to Broadway where it clinched six Tony Awards.
Tiffany’s other credits include the James Bond-inspired, Barbara Broccoli-produced Once, which played on Off-Broadway and Broadway, winning the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Musical as well as Tony and Obie awards.
The original Wild Rose feature, written by Nicole Taylor and directed by Tom Harper, starred Jesse Buckley as protagonist Rose-Lynn Harlan, an aspiring country music singer and single mother of two from Glasgow who is recently out of jail.
After world premiering at Toronto in 2018, the film went on to clinch a slew of awards and nominations at home and internationally, including Best Actress in the Bafta Scotland Awards and Ireland’s IFTA awards as well as Best Song at the Critics Choice Awards for “Glasgow (No Place Like Home)”.
Buckley’s role was played by Dawn Sievewright in the stage version, with other cast members including Blythe Duff as Rose-Lynn’s mother and Janet Kumah as Susannah, a an affluent woman who hires Rose-Lynn as cleaner and becomes an unexpected champion of her talents.
Ward, whose credits also include Stan & Ollie, Rocks and Suffragette, was speaking to Deadline after a retrospective screening of Wild Rose at the SCAD Lacoste Film Festival.
She accompanied the film with a Q&A alongside UK producer Alison Owen (Suffragette, Saving Mr. Banks) about the art of producing.
“It feels like a good time to be showing it again given the fresh interest in the film following the stage production,” she said.
Fable Pictures, in which Sony Pictures Television has a minority stake, has recently enjoyed success with two time Bafta-award-winning TV drama Mr Loverman, which was recently acquired by BritBox for the U.S.
