Berkshire’s Paddington musical co-creator on ‘magical’ first show

The co-creator behind the new Paddington musical has described the “magical” moment an audience saw him for the first time.

Jessica Swale, who is originally from Berkshire, has worked to create the show with McFly’s Tom Fletcher and its first preview show took place at London’s Savoy Theatre on Saturday.

The show was adapted from the popular books by Berkshire-born Michael Bond.

“Tom and I have probably seen the reveal moment of the bear I reckon 400 or 500 times and maybe we are just emotional wrecks working towards something that means so much to us,” Swale said. “But it makes us weep every single time because he’s so beautifully done.”

She said the team behind the show had worked “really hard” to keep the new iteration under wraps for the past couple of years.

“We have to get it right. Paddington is so beloved and has become such an icon that we had to make sure that if we were going to put him on stage he would be utterly lovable,” Swale said.

“It’s really quite an astonishing thing. I have worked in theatre since I was 19, 20, which is a little while ago, and I have never ever seen anything quite so magical in my life.”

Paddington’s original creator, Bond was born in Newbury and grew up in Reading.

Swale was born at Reading’s Royal Berkshire Hospital and attended St Nicholas CE Primary School in Hurst and Kendrick School.

Despite currently living in London, she feels “like I’ve had my paws very firmly planted in Berkshire my whole life”.

Back in the capital, her home is now dominated by an attempt to make a small, Paddington-related present for the many hundreds of people involved in the production as per theatre tradition.

“I have a house that is completely covered in sticky surfaces. Everywhere I go, everything I pick up, everything is marmalade flavoured.

“I loved marmalade but I’m having a difficult relationship with it now because nearly 300 pots of marmalade later, I can’t get out of my front door without everything sticking to me.”