{"id":4994,"date":"2025-09-05T09:26:54","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T09:26:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/david-bowie-was-working-on-an-18th-century-musical-at-the-time-of-his-death-151239\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T09:26:54","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T09:26:54","slug":"david-bowie-was-working-on-an-18th-century-musical-at-the-time-of-his-death-151239","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/david-bowie-was-working-on-an-18th-century-musical-at-the-time-of-his-death-151239\/","title":{"rendered":"David Bowie was working on an \u201c18th Century Musical\u201d at the time of his death"},"content":{"rendered":"
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David Bowie was working on a secret project at the time of his death in 2016, as reported by the BBC<\/a>. \u2018The Spectator\u2019 was envisaged by Bowie to be an \u201c18th Century Musical\u201d based on the daily periodical of the same name, published by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele in London from 1711 to 1712.<\/p>\n

A series of post-it notes relating to the plot of \u2018The Spectator\u2019 were left stuck to the wall of Bowie\u2019s study in New York. The room was always locked \u2013 only Bowie and his personal assistant had a key \u2013 so the project remained unknown to anyone else until archivists began cataloguing Bowie\u2019s belongings.<\/p>\n

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The post-it notes will now be available for public view when the David Bowie Centre opens at the V&A East Storehouse in London\u2019s Hackney Wick on September 13, along with a notebook of comments on The Spectator, and the desk where he worked.<\/p>\n

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Bowie\u2019s notes suggest that he was looking to incorporate real characters from early 18th century London into the plot of his musical, such as notorious thief \u2018Honest Jack\u2019 Sheppard and his capturer Jonathan Wild \u2013 a vigilante who styled himself as the \u2018Thief-Taker General\u2019 \u2013 as well a gang called The Mohocks.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe was interested in the development of musicals themselves in London in this period, and how musicals were used for political satire, particularly towards the Robert Walpole government,\u201d says Madeleine Haddon, curator of the David Bowie Archive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s interesting to think that Bowie was working on this in the US in 2015, with the political situation that was taking place there. Was he thinking about that: The power of art forms to create change within our own political moment?\u201d<\/p>\n

The David Bowie Archive opens at the V&A East Storehouse on September 13 with around 200 items on public display and others available to view on request by applying in advance here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The post David Bowie was working on an \u201c18th Century Musical\u201d at the time of his death<\/a> appeared first on UNCUT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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David Bowie was working on a secret project at the time of his death in 2016, as reported by the BBC. \u2018The Spectator\u2019 was envisaged by Bowie to be an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2414,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-david-bowie","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}