Amy Winehouse musical in development for London's West End

A musical based on Amy Winehouse is in development for London's West End, according to Variety, with the project still in its early stages.

The Tony award-winning producer Catherine Schreiber, whose credits include Cabaret and Rent, is attached to the show, and casting is reported to be under way. Mitch Winehouse, the late singer's father, is also said to be involved — an indication that the musical will probably feature her most loved songs. The Guardian has approached Winehouse's record label for comment.

A project long discussed

Mitch Winehouse has hinted at the possibility over the years. In a 2017 interview he said a musical celebrating her life and music was "being talked about for the near future", and that it was something he would really like to happen and was happy to go ahead.

"It would be for the West End," he said at the time. "We want to do something that remembers Amy for what she was; there's so much more to her than just the drugs and the alcohol."

The show would join the posthumous music releases, films and TV specials that have appeared since Winehouse's death in 2011, aged 27.

Anniversary marked at the Roundhouse

This week, the 20th anniversary of her landmark album Back to Black was celebrated with a tribute concert at London's Roundhouse, featuring performances by Jorja Smith, Mark Ronson, Lianne La Havas and Corinne Bailey Rae.

The Guardian's Dorian Lynskey wrote that "Back to Black remains a miraculous set of modern love songs in vintage clothing", while noting that "re-enactments can be limiting".

On 23 October, an expanded reissue of Back to Black will be released, including four unreleased demos, B-sides and a live album recording made at Amsterdam's Paradiso in 2007.

Earlier posthumous projects have drawn mixed responses. The 2011 rarities collection Lioness was received as a "flawed memorial for a flawed star", while Sam Taylor-Johnson's 2024 biopic of the musician was criticised by the Guardian's Laura Snapes as a "grotesque insult". Asif Kapadia's 2015 documentary won the best documentary Oscar and was praised by the Guardian as "an intimate and passionate tribute, tracing the awful trajectory of her celebrity destiny".

Separately, a current London exhibition by the artist Alex Margo Arden assembles ephemera from Winehouse's life in a Chelsea apartment, including ballet flats laid in tribute to the singer and a birthday card from Ronson and Adele that she never had the chance to open.

Source: The Guardian.