Jonathan Harvey, the celebrated playwright who created the iconic Beautiful Thing, will have a new play in the West End next year. Savage will celebrate the life of entertainer Paul O’Grady, who first found fame via his drag persona Lily Savage.
The play has been in development for many years, and O’Grady saw a version of the script before his unexpected death in March 2023. The work has been developed with the blessing of his husband, André Portasio.
The production will make its debut in the city of Leicester before undertaking a UK tour and a run in London’s West End. RuPaul’s Drag Race UK season four winner Danny Beard will portray O’Grady, taking on the role of his alter ego, Lily Savage.
O’Grady grew up in Cheshire in an Irish immigrant family and moved to London in the late 1970s. He created his drag persona Lily Savage and became a fixture at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in South London.
His act was hugely popular and, alongside his performances, he spoke out against injustices experienced by the LGBTIQA+ community, including opposition to the Thatcher government’s Section 28 laws and the treatment of people living with HIV. By the late 1980s, Lily Savage was appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and touring internationally. The character went on to achieve significant success on British television, before O’Grady established a mainstream career out of drag, hosting game shows, chat shows and lifestyle programmes.
Alongside his acclaimed play Beautiful Thing, which was adapted into a successful film in the 1990s, Jonathan Harvey also created the popular television shows Gimme, Gimme, Gimme and Beautiful People. He also created the musical Closer to Heaven with the Pet Shop Boys and its spin-off cabaret show Muzik.
Speaking about the project, Harvey said he had been honoured to be given the opportunity to tell O’Grady’s story.
“I was so thrilled when Paul gave me the opportunity to turn his life story into a stage show. I first saw Lily in a scuzzy gay bar in West London in the late 1980s and laughed until I hurt, so it is an honour indeed to bring his story and the colourful escapades of the blonde bombsite herself to life. This is one of those few shows that I am involved in where I can say, ‘You need to come. It is really good’, because the zinging one-liners are all his. It is so sad he is not here to see it, but hopefully this will be a fitting testament to everything he achieved, and a cracking night out full of humour and heart,” Harvey said.
The production will be directed by Nikolai Foster. Foster has also worked with the Pet Shop Boys in the past, directing a stage version of Hanif Kureishi’s My Beautiful Laundrette, for which the duo created a soundtrack. His career has seen him stage many classic musicals.
