How to see David Bowie’s secret final project as late icon’s last piece of art unearthed

The late Life On Mars singer worked on a musical in the months before his death, a project so secret, not even his closest collaborators knew about it

Late singer David Bowie ‘s secret final project has been revealed and will be made available to the public in a museum display.

The musical, which he started creating in the months before his death, was so secret, not even his closest collaborators were aware of its existence until after he died.

The Spectator is a music set in 18th century London. Bowie’s notes, which will be on display at the V&A East Storehouse in Hackney Wick, show he was highly interested in the development of art and culture in that period, as well as stories of criminal gangs.

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Bowie was writing the musical in the months before his death and kept all his notes locked away in his study. In 2016, the legendary musician died after an 18-month battle with cancer.

After his death, the notes of his final secret project were found in his study, which was previously accessible to only Bowie and his assistant. All of the handwritten notes remained undisturbed until archivists began cataloguing is belongings.

They have now been donated to the V&A museum and will be available to view when the David Bowie Centre opens at the Hackney Wick site on 13 September.

The project will appear alongside 90,000 other items related to the singer. The exhibition is designed to trace Bowie’s “creative processes as a musical innovator, cultural icon, and advocate for self-expression and reinvention”.

This isn’t Bowie’s only musical. He and Enda Walsh wrote Lazarus shortly before he died, a musical inspired by Walter Tevis’ 1963 novel The Man Who Fell To Earth. In 1976, Bowie starred in a film adaptation of the book.

Bowie’s musical was performed for six weeks in New York and moved to London from November 2016 to January 2017.

The musical’s songs were later released as a posthumous album and turned into a VR experience. It followed Blackstar, Bowie’s final album, which was released only days before he died. The album dives into his views on his own mortality and how they evolved as his cancer progressed.

The day before the V&A exhibition opens, a new box set will be available to buy. I Can’t Give Everything Away (2022-2016) documents and celebrates the final years of Bowie’s career.

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