Tom Fletcher calls Paddington Musical songs the best he's ever written: "For Paddington, they had to be"

Paddington is pulling into the Savoy Theatre as we speak, as the world premiere of the Paddington Musical begins previews this Saturday.

The beloved, marmalade-gobbling bear will be appearing on the London stage alongside a stacked cast of musical theatre stars including Doctor Who's Bonnie Langford as Mrs Bird, Adrian Der Gregorian as Mr Brown and Amy Ellen Richardson as Mrs Brown.

Just a few days out and much of the show is still very unknown, including what the leading bear will look and sound like. Also a mystery? The contents of the soundtrack written and composed by McFly's Tom Fletcher.

So far, snippets have been released from two of the songs: The Explorer and the Bear and Pretty Little Dead Things sung by the villainous Millicent Clyde (played by Victoria Hamilton-Barritt), but the rest has been kept under wraps.

However, Fletcher assures us it will be worth the wait. In an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com, he said they were "some of the best songs I'd ever written".

He said: "Paddington is so timeless, he feels like he's been in our lives forever, and he will be in our lives forever, so I really wanted the music to do the same.

"I knew I wanted the show to feel like it can hold its own with contemporary musicals and not feel dated, but at the same time I didn’t want it to be so contemporary it would feel old in three years' time.

"It's hard for me to judge if I've pulled that off, but I mean these songs had to be the best songs I've ever written because Paddington deserves it to be."

The boyband star and children's book writer first started working on the project five years ago, recalling that he'd said yes instantly.

"I had a mild panic afterwards of not knowing whether I could do it or not," he said, "But then I just focused on the actual material and started taking inspiration from the books and movies, and it just never felt hard really and I never had a moment where I didn't know what to do musically because the source material is that good."

He did confess one little hiccup in the writing process however: "Well, at one point I was writing and this big film crew started setting up in the field that's about 20 metres away from my house – it was only Paddington 3.

"They were filming the marmalade machine in Peru minutes from where I was writing the musical, I got a bit flustered that Paddington and Aunt Lucy were right there."

As for how he feels about the show now, the singer has hardly had time to breathe as he and the other members of McFly are currently gigging for the McFly vs Busted arena tour, but: "I can't even begin to tell you how exciting it is," he said, grinning, "I’ve seen it on posters on cabs driving around London, and it’s so weird now everybody is talking about it. We've all been working on it for so long and it means so much to all of us.

"We were tasked with looking after this bear, you know, that was on his tag around his neck. And, I feel like that's what we've all tried to do over the last five years, just take care as best we can of this amazing story and character.

"So we're very very excited for everyone else to to see what we've done."

How to get Paddington the Musical West End tickets

Paddington tickets are now live at LOVEtheatre starting from £29. The show is running at London's Savoy Theatre from 1st November to May 2026.

Buy Paddington the Musical tickets at LOVEtheatre

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