Nanny McPhee is headed to the West End! Deadline has revealed that the musical adaptation of the fantasy movie Nanny McPhee, written by Emma Thompson, is eyeing a run in London’s West End in 2026. Thompson wrote and starred as the titular Nanny in the 2005 film, as well as its subsequent sequel, 2010’s Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang.
The musical adaptation, with songs by Gary Clark, has been in development for over a decade. An early workshop of Nanny McPhee was led by Olivia Colman in 2018, and the show was originally planned to hit the London stage in 2023, as BroadwayWorld previously reported. It is unclear as to why this planned production never saw the light.
Katy Rudd has now signed on to direct, bringing in the newfound buzz surrounding the adaptation.
No dates or theater have been confirmed for Nanny McPhee’s West End run at this time.
Read the original story on Deadline.
About Nanny McPhee
Nanny McPhee is a 2005 film, directed by Kirk Jones, with music by Patrick Doyle, and produced by Lindsay Doran, Tim Bevan, and Eric Fellner. Set in Victorian England in the 1860s, the film stars Emma Thompson as Nanny McPhee, along with Colin Firth, Kelly MacDonald, Derek Jacobi, Celia Imrie, Patrick Barlow, Imelda Staunton, Thomas Sangster and Angela Lansbury.
The film was theatrically released on 28 October 2005 in the UK by United International Pictures and on 27 January 2006 in the US by Universal Pictures. Thompson also scripted the film, which is adapted from Christianna Brand’s Nurse Matilda books. The film follows the titular governess who uses magic to rein in the behavior of seven ne’er-do-well children in her charge.
Thompson recently apepared in the role of the evil headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, in the 2022 Netflix adaptation of Matilda the Musical.
Thompson made her Broadway debut as Sally Smith in Me & My Girl in 1985, role that she also played in the West End. She appeared onstage as Mrs. Lovett in Lincoln Center’s concert performance of “Sweeney Todd,” a role which she reprised in the 2015 West End production. She lent her voice to the West End production of Whodunnit [Unrehearsed] 2 in 2022. She was also heard singing in Disney’s live action Beauty and the Beast film as Mrs. Potts.
On screen, Thompson is known for roles in “Nanny McPhee,” “Love, Actually,” the “Harry Potter” films, “Saving Mr. Banks,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” and “Cruella.”