David Bowie Was Working on a Secret Project

He didn't tell even his closest collaborators about it, but David Bowie was working on a new musical before his death in 2016. A notebook and notes pinned to the walls of his office in New York revealed that the singer was working on a musical called The Spectator, set in early 18th-century London and named after a daily publication that lasted between 1711 and 1712, the Guardian reports. His notes, which have been donated to London's V&A Museum with the rest of his archive, reveal that he was considering making notorious petty thief and prison escapee Jack Sheppard a main character, reports the BBC. Bowie envisioned the scene of a public hanging, with "surgeons fighting over corpses."

Historian Bob Harris tells the BBC that it's no surprise Bowie was fascinated by the period. "London, at that stage, was such an exciting, vibrant, and diverse city," he says. "It was the largest city in western Europe, with a population of over half a million, and it had an ebullient print media that was constantly commentating on the fashions and follies of the age." Bowie's plot ideas included an attack by the Mohocks gang, described by Harris as "young men of high social status basically getting drunk in the evening and then attacking people on the streets of London."

The V&A's David Bowie Center opens next week. Lead curator Madeleine Haddon says Bowie's notes show he "was interested in the development of musicals themselves in London in this period, and how musicals were used for political satire." She tells the BBC: "It seems he was thinking, 'What is the role of artists within this period? How are artists creating a kind of satirical commentary?'" Bowie died in January 2016, and Haddon believes he may have been trying to draw parallels with the political situation in the US at the time. Bowie, who had long spoken of wanting to write for theater, completed another musical, Lazarus, which premiered in November 2015, Rolling Stone notes.