Bear Necessities: How Paddington became the West End’s brightest new star

It could hardly be more on brand – Tom Fletcher is a couple of minutes late for an interview about how he successfully brought Britain’s most beloved bear to the stage because he’s preoccupied, quite naturally, with some small furry animals of his own.

“I’m really sorry, but we’ve just had some chicks and they need looking after,” he grins, before aiming his laptop camera at said bundle of heartstring-pulling avian angels.

There’s a menagerie of other animals throughout his sprawling home, Fletcher adds, doing very little to dispel the notion that he’s living an idyllic, semi-storybook lifestyle.

Arriving to our chat perfectly on time, however, is a certain duffel coat-wearing bear, calling in directly from his home in Windsor Gardens. It’s a show day, though, and a commute to the Savoy Theatre imminently beckons.

“When I first arrived in London, I thought it was terribly loud. Now I know it isn’t just noise, it’s music! Mr Brown has been teaching me air guitar, although Mrs Bird says I should keep a safe distance from the marmalade jars,” says Paddington, the West End’s newest star, before politely departing for a preshow breakfast of marmalade sandwiches.

Which leaves Fletcher – clearly the right man for Paddington: The Musical given that aforementioned menagerie – to explain how he’s played a huge role in turning Michael Bond’s beloved British institution into the hottest West End ticket in years.

It’s six months since it opened, and tickets are like gold dust for the rest of the year. In May, the show scooped seven Olivier Awards – confirming that the team had struck something as golden as marmalade itself.

“It’s just been my perfect project,” reflects Fletcher, who rose to fame more than 20 years ago as co-lead singer of McFly. “I grew up at theatre school and then I became a songwriter with the band, which I’ve been doing for years, but musical theatre was such a huge part of my life. But I’m a children’s author too [he has written the hugely popular Christmasaurus series], so Paddington felt like the perfect blend of everything that I loved: songwriting, children’s stories and musical theatre. I just feel so lucky to be part of this incredible team, and of course you have these hopes and dreams of what it could become and could achieve, but the fact that it just has gone so well and been received so well is incredibly special to all of us.”

The McFly frontman came on board when he was approached to work on the show’s music and lyrics around the time of the first Covid lockdown in early 2020, serendipitously days after he’d been charmed by watching Paddington 2 while at home with his family.  

A musical is never an easy thing to write, but it’s an even trickier task when you’re juggling life in one of Britain’s most beloved pop bands and the small matter of that burgeoning menagerie. 

“I was juggling this with being a band, filming The Voice and writing books. Writing a musical is five years of your life and you can’t put your whole life on hold around that,” he says. “It requires 100 per cent of your attention and it isn’t easy to do that but also tour with the band, make albums, look after my kids, and then raise these young chickens as well! That was definitely the biggest challenge – but this has been a dream all my life.”

After a gruelling five years in development, Paddington: The Musical eventually debuted in November last year at London’s Savoy Theatre and received a resounding thumbs-up from audiences and critics alike. It’s easy to talk about the magic of the theatre, but go to any performance and you’ll hear a genuine audible gasp the first time the audience sees the eponymous ursine – performed onstage by Arti Shah and off it by James Hameed. The story loosely follows the plot of the hit 2014 film, and it is Fletcher’s songs – as eclectic as they are joyous – which help the show truly come to life, alongside scriptwriter Jessica Swale and director Luke Sheppard. 

“When you start work on a project like this, a lot of creative people probably share this feeling of fluctuating between knowing that it’s so right for you to do it and that you can do it, but 10 seconds later being crippled with anxiety and the feeling of what have I just got myself into?” he explains.  

“But for me, I just had the feeling that I was so ready to write something like this. I had been waiting for a project like this to come along and so I was desperate for it to not slip me by. I knew that my name was a contender among many legendary writers, but I had this feeling that I was gonna fight for this and give it my all.”

Fletcher, it’s unanimously agreed, has lived up to that mantra and far more. These songs – fittingly recorded in the hallowed halls of Abbey Road – are wildly unpredictable, hugely entertaining and the perfect encapsulation of the irreverence which is all too present in Bond’s source material. Over the course of one show, audiences will take in a fantastic villain song for the ages in Millicent Clyde’s ‘Pretty Little Dead Things’, an all-out rock number for Mr Brown that wouldn’t be out of place at a McFly gig, and even a charming ode to marmalade inspired by Fletcher’s love of classic American songwriting duo the Sherman Brothers.

“We realised early on that each song had to be tailored for each character, but also sonically towards Matt Brind’s ridiculously amazing arrangements so that it feels all together and when you hear a song you know it’s from Paddington,” he reflects.

“But it also allowed me to be like, ‘OK, I love big villain power ballads, I love the Sherman Brothers, and I have also spent the last 24 years writing pop-rock songs. This was a chance for me to throw my toolbox of all of these things into Paddington.”

He adds: “That’s also the whole point of the show: we wanted it to be this love letter to London and all of the differences and diversity that we see around this city. So, I think it felt quite appropriate that the music kind of reflected that.”

That last point is particularly prudent. As a lifelong Londoner, I found myself crying with laughter at the sight of dancing Bobbies during ‘The Rhythm of London’, and left the theatre with an overwhelming sense that it had provided a tonic to the bashing the city often unfairly receives in our divided times. 

“I think what’s been interesting is the way that the world has changed in the time we’ve been writing the show. We always wanted it to be a love letter to London, but the subject matter became more relevant towards the end of making it and when the show was opening,” says Fletcher.

“I think one of the reasons it’s been received so warmly is that this is the message we all need right now and I get a sense of that whenever I’m in the room. What’s been lovely is some people come expecting to see a show about Paddington and they think it’s just going to be a nice night out at the theatre. It is that, but there’s a deeper message which catches people off guard and that’s why people have been crying.”

There’s been a few tears for Fletcher too, particularly when he was first given the chance to meet the bear, as he appears in the show, in person.

“It was the most surreal moment of my life. Myself, Jess and Luke were in this rehearsal room, and we’d been told that when Paddington walks out, the rules are that you talk to Paddington like he’s Paddington. We had streams of tears coming out of our eyes and it was overwhelming – one of the first times we felt that this is going to be incredible.”

And for Fletcher, there’s the sense that a bear who changed the lives of the Brown family could yet transform all of ours too. 

“I love getting the show report and hearing about audible tears which have been heard from the audience. How special is it that we get to write a show which is on the surface about a cute fluffy bear that loves marmalade, but deep down we’re having a significant impact on people. We’ve genuinely had messages from people who have come to the theatre with one mindset and said that the show has made them take a step back and think about their views. It’s truly unique in that sense, Paddington.”

Or, as Peru’s finest surmises in a handwritten message that arrives at RS UK HQ:  “Music is rather special because it belongs to everyone. Wherever you’re from, and whatever words you know, it can make you feel at home. It brings people together and I think that’s rather wonderful.”

You can order your own very special edition of Rolling Stone UK, with Paddington on the cover, here.