Artwork for Fourteen Again, supplied by the venue
Fourteen Again, a new musical featuring music and lyrics by Victoria Wood with a book by Everybody’s Talking About Jamie writer Tom MacRae.
Fourteen Again follows Peggy, who reconnects with her former best friend Lou at a local slimming club, exploring friendship, nostalgia and renewal through Wood’s songs.
The creative team includes director Jonathan O’Boyle, musical supervisor Nigel Lilley, set designer Roger Glossop, lighting designer Jason Taylor and costume designer Caroline Hughes.
MacRae describes how it feels to be weaving Wood’s work into new material: “I was honoured to write Victoria’s final TV show, we got to swap stories about working at the Crucible – a theatre where she had cut her teeth and where my first ever stage show, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, was about to open.
Working with Vic again on a brand-new stage show feels like we’ve come full circle – and yes, creating Fourteen Again has felt very much like working with Vic, even though we sadly can’t collaborate in person anymore. Her joy and genius loom large over everything we’ve built. I wanted to create a show that is genuinely dramatic and surprising, with high stakes and real tension, as well as celebrating Vic’s innate sense of comedy and the warmth of her world, populated with loveable, relatable characters and celebrating friendship.”
Lilley forged a close connection with Wood, and explained today: “After having such a hit with Talent in 1978 it seems crazy that it took Vic over 25 years to venture back into the world of musicals with Acorn Antiques. By the time we worked on That Day We Sang in 2014 it felt like she was absolutely in her happy place, and I have no doubt that had she lived longer she would have had so many more glorious musicals to offer us.
“Vic’s ability to flip between side-splitting comedy and devastating pathos in an instant remains unmatched for me. Going back to her songs in preparation for Fourteen Again I was struck again by the exquisite and meticulous skill in her writing – and yet the music and lyrics still feel so effortless on the ear. Vic was always on the search for new and original projects. I think she’d be cheering us on loudly with Tom’s brilliant new script which honours her songs so beautifully.”
Performances of Fourteen Again run at the newly rechristened Victoria Wood Theatre (currently the Old Laundry Theatre in Bowness-on-Windermere) from 1 to 23 May 2026. Tickets go on sale on 9 November 2025 via the theatre’s website. There will be a press night on 7 May and a gala performance on what would have been Wood’s birthday, 19 May.
