Tom Fletcher on The Creakers, Paddington and a lifetime of musicals

We’re sat in the foyer at the Southbank Centre – pre-opening night filtering hubbub around us. McFly’s Tom Fletcher, composer of new musical The Creakers, couldn’t be less phased by the experience – coming off a remote video interview with Sky News, he’s completely at home in the venue.

Indeed, Fletcher has always been drawn to the world of the stage (“I actually thought I would end up being in musicals rather than more so than being in a band”, he admits), having been a Sylvia Young alum and making his West End debut as Oliver on The London Palladium stage almost 30 years ago. If anything, he stumbled into national treasure band member by accident.

So The Creakers, which plays through to 5 January 2025, is not a departure for the music scribe. In fact, it’s only the latest in a strong line of stage shows Fletcher has based on some of the childrens’ books he’s written – The Christmasaurus was a big, festive spectacle at the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith in 2017, while There’s A Monster In Your Show continues to tour into 2025.

I ask Fletcher – what is it like leaping from page to stage? In the case of The Creakers, which tells the tale of a world where all the adults disappear and a group of intrepid kids have to venture into an unknown world… under their beds, Fletcher had already started releasing some tunes for the book before a stage version was even locked in place: “I’d got the story and I’d got 10 songs or 11 songs. That was a great start for a musical – then it was really about finding the right people that you trust and you get on with.”

That collaborator was Miranda Larson, who took Fletcher’s original text and fed it into a live story. Interestingly, Fletcher believes that musicals come easier than songs for the band or books: “You already have your character – you know where they’re at in the story. So then you have to ask ‘what do they need to say?’ and ‘where they need to be at by the end of the song?’. It’s that great. That’s all the hard work done before you even start writing the song and you just then need to make sure your song totally reflects that. I think that’s easier way than if you’re, you know, trying to figure out what you’re going to write for the band as a 39-year-old.”

Fletcher says that parenthood has been transformative for his own theatregoing experience – rediscovering shows or finding family-oriented productions to take his family to. It also helps his own writing process being able to run ideas past his children. Pre-teens are, after all, famously the most vicious critics of all: “I get to quiz them! My eldest came when we did a Paddington workshop this morning. We were like: ‘right, what worked, what was great, what was slow? What don’t you understand?’ And actually getting proper feedback from him is amazing.”

Paddington, that iconic bear, is Fletcher’s next big musical project now that The Creakers is enchanting audiences on the Southbank. Expectations are high, but Fletcher, as composer, is confident that he and the team around him will all be delivering something that lives up to them. “You’ve got Luke Sheppard directing, Jess Swale writing the book, Matthew Brind doing the music. It is just this unbelievable team and I feel so lucky to be a small cog in this machine. It really is a pinch-me moment and the most special thing I’ve ever been a part of. Without a doubt. I can’t wait for people to see it.”

Paddington sits a bit differently to The Creakers as it isn’t based on Fletcher’s own workings – but the pressure sits differently to that, he explains: “It’s not only someone else’s story, it’s become everyone’s story. It’s a story that everybody loves – this is an international treasure. There’s a level of expectation that comes with working on that, that I guess you kind of have to just try to ignore and focus on how to make it as great as we can without, you know, caving into those pressures.”

Fletcher won’t be drawn on what exactly to expect, but he did say the first time he sees Paddington, it makes him cry every time: “It’s just magic. Pure theatrical magic.”

The Creakers continues until 5 January 2025.