Dave Stewart believes we must tell the people dearest to us that we love them. The songwriter has been doing that for years through his songs and now he's moving it a step further by writing a stage musical based on the hit movie Ghost, which will open in the West End next year.
Matthew Warchus, the award-winning British director, will direct the musical, working with his long-time design collaborator Rob Howell. The producers David Garfinkle and Colin Ingram haven't secured a theatre yet, but I understand that they have asked about the availability of houses such as the Cambridge.
Stewart has joined forces with songwriter-record producer Glen Ballard to write music and lyrics for the movie, while Bruce Joel Rubin, who won an Oscar for his screenplay for the film, will write the show's book.
The movie made stars of Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze, who played the picture's two lovers, while Whoopie Goldberg won a best supporting Academy Award for her portrait of Oda Mae Brown, a disreputable medium who gets a shock when her sham seances conjure up a real ghost.
'I think you've really got to tell people you love them and you've got to really live life to the full, because in Ghost the guy is taken away quite early,' Stewart said from a Los Angeles recording studio, where he was about to work with Mick Jagger.
Those who know the 1990 film well will remember that Swayze and Moore played lovers Sam and Molly, but Sam gets bumped off by a mugger as the couple take a stroll down a quiet street. Molly can't see or hear Sam's ghost, but Oda Mae can.
Stewart explained that he and Ballard, who has written for the likes of Aerosmith and Michael Jackson, have plenty of material from Rubin's book to work from.'Remember Molly always used to say to Sam "I love you so much" and he'd say "Ditto" and as a ghost it's killing him that he didn't tell her how much he loved her when he was alive,' Stewart said.
He and London-based Ingram echoed each other when talking about other aspects of the story that could, it's hoped, make perfect musical theatre. There's the best friend who's not as he seems, the scene where Sam kisses Molly through Oda Mae. 'That's pretty wild,' quipped Stewart.
Stewart said he and Ballard have woven together diverse musical elements for the show. 'Strings and things and it starts to sound a little bit like Eurythmics . . . which I can't help!' he said, laughing. The producers held a reading of the script and songs in Los Angeles last year, and in May Warchus will hold a workshop in London to explore the show's structure.
'We're in that shape where we're a piece of clay and we're moulding and moulding,' said Stewart, cleverly alluding to the fact that Molly's a sculptor. He said he and Ballard are aiming for songs that could become classics. I hope so, too.