Moby Dick Lives On! Cameron Mackintosh’s Famous Flop May Swim to London and Broadway

Cameron Mackintosh’s campy, drag-tastic, music hall-style Moby Dick musical may soon swim again! The cult favorite show, which famously flopped on the West End in 1992, may resurface—potentially on Broadway—according to a report from British newspaper The Standard.

“I was dealing with someone who wants to bring Moby Dick out next year, an American producer,” said Mackintosh, the uber-producer behind the recent Les Miserables film. Mackintosh spoke of two revivals being mounted: “A production that’s going to open in London in a pub theater and… one being eyed up for Broadway in the next two years.”

The 1992 giant of a musical is a song-and-dance adaptation of Herman Melville’s classic novel, set in the swimming pool at a girls’ boarding school and featuring the school’s headmistress as a cross-dressing Captain Ahab.

Moby Dick began life as a small show called Moby Dick: A Whale of a Tale before Mackintosh transformed the show to the West End in March of 1992. Four months later, it closed at the Piccadilly Theatre after  receiving negative reviews.

“Good old shows never die,” added Mackintosh. “I keep them in my Lazarus locker.”

Can't wait to see this Dick? Check out a clip of the brash, bizarre musical at the 1992 Olivier Awards below!