Lyceum: Coraline cancelled

Jan 29 2025 | By | Reply More

Neil Gaiman adaptation cancelled after allegations of miss-conduct

The musical adaptation of Coraline, due to tour to the Lyceum from 26 June to 19 July this year has been cancelled following allegations of sexual misconduct against the original author Neil Gaiman.

The ticket page for the show on the Lyceum website has been pulled and there is a terse joint statement from shows co-producers on its newsfeed page.

Logo for Coraline

The statement reads:

From the co-production partners: Leeds Playhouse, Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, Birmingham Rep, and HOME, Manchester.

We have decided our production of Coraline – A Musical will not proceed. After careful consideration, we feel it would be impossible to continue in the context of the allegations against its original author.

Ticket holders have been contacted directly via email.

The new musical with a book by Lyceum associate Zinnie Harris and music & lyrics by Louis Barabbas, was to have been based on Gaiman’s 2002 eerie children’s novel.

According to the Guardian in May 2024, Harris had developed the script over a 12 year period with James Brining, artistic director of Leeds Playhouse who takes over as AD at the Lyceum in April this year.

Coraline won the 2003 Hugo award for best novella and was described by Philip Pullman as “marvellously strange and scary”. It was adapted as an American Gothic stop-animation film in 2009, as an opera by composer Mark-Anthony Turnage, with a libretto by Rory Mullarkey, in 2018 and an off-Broadway musical.

The allegations against Gaiman were originally made in a podcast last year and detailed in New York culture magazine site Vulture earlier this month.

Gaiman has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct, saying he has “never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone. Ever”.

ENDS

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