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Get Ready For David Bowie’s ‘Lazarus’ The Musical

As his off-Broadway play ‘Lazarus’ hits the UK stage this week; Columbia Records also releases a soundtrack of Bowie’s swansong musical masterpiece.  


When David Bowie died on January 10th this year the world mourned, but for a group of musicians and performers who were gathered together at NYC’s Avatar Studios the very next day the loss felt even more palpable. They were the cast and house-band of Lazarus, Bowie’s off-Broadway musical, the opening night of which they had celebrated with Bowie just a few weeks before, many unaware he was even ill. It was in this state of grief and shock that they recorded the soundtrack in single day and the result is a heart-breaking record that truly captures the magnificence of the late, great icon.

While Lazarus wrapped its sold-out six-week run in New York City early this year, it will open this week in London on October 25th at King’s Cross Theatre, with dates scheduled through Jan. 21, 2017. The double disc cast album is available now.




Bowie began planning the musical in late 2014 with pianist/producer Henry Hey – who he’d worked with on 2013’s The Next Day – and enlisted Irish playwright Enda Walsh to write the script. The plan was to include songs from over his career, not just the hits, and reimagine them in a Broadway style alongside three new songs: ‘New Plan’, Killing A Little Time’, and ‘When I Met You’. ‘All The Young Dudes’ becomes a horn-laden, jazz-hand worthy show-tune; Killing A Little Time is an operatic monster with heavy rock riffs; and Changes is stripped back, taking away the honky-tonk to become a tender ballad.

When Bowie took the stage at the curtain-call of the plays sell-out, rave-review opening night on December 10th 2015, no one could know it would be his final public appearance. But Lazarus’ genius lives on an and his Blackstar burns brighter than ever.

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