Russell T Davies has rejected offers to turn beloved show into stage musical
'Doctor Who' and 'It's A Sin' showrunner Russell T Davies has turned down the chance to give his hit show the West End musical treatment.
Russell T Davies has turned down offers for an 'It's A Sin' musical.
The 61-year-old screenwriter penned the drama for Channel 4 - which saw pop star Olly Alexander star as gay teenager Ritchie Tozer growing up during the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s - back in 2021, and while the limited series was a huge success, he has no desire to profit off "something that's very dark" by giving it the West End treatment.
Speaking at the 'BAFTA: A Life In Pictures' event, he's quoted by RadioTimes.com as saying: "A lot of people came to me after that, saying, 'make a musical' and I just wanted to move on.
"I didn't want to wallow. It was very strange, with its success – it was very hard to celebrate, because it was this enormous success and yet such a tragic true story.
"A lot of good names, posh names, said to me, 'Do a musical' and I just didn't want to stay there. I thought 'I've done it', and I felt like I'd be treading water or trying to repeat a success or almost profiting off something that's very dark..."
Russell admitted he "might go back to it one day", but it's currently not on the cards.
The series got rave reviews, but the showrunner previousy insisted he has "moved on" with no plans for a return.
According to the Daily Star newspaper, he said back in 2022: "I can see it had an extraordinary resonance but you sit down with the next script and it's a blank page and I think 'I've got no idea what I'm doing'.
"You think 'I can't do that again', which is why there isn't a second series. I just like to move on and do something different."
Meanwhile, Russell only agreed to his current 'Doctor Who' return because he has stories he "wanted to write".
He told the 'Table Manners' podcast last year: "It is lovely, I only came back because I had things to do, things I wanted to do and stories I wanted to write.
"It doesn't feel like I am going back as cliche as it sounds, it feels like I am going forward."
