When David Bowie passed away in January 2016, the world mourned the loss of a musical icon whose creative reach seemed boundless. Yet, as fans and collaborators celebrated his final album, Blackstar, few could have guessed that Bowie had left behind one last, secret project—an unfinished musical titled The Spectator, now coming to light nearly a decade after his death.
According to BBC News, the existence of The Spectator was a revelation even to Bowie’s closest collaborators. The project was discovered posthumously, locked away in his private study in New York—a room so closely guarded that only Bowie and his personal assistant possessed a key. Inside, archivists found a treasure trove: handwritten notes pinned to the walls, a dedicated notebook, and a desk littered with the creative detritus of a mind that never stopped working. These artifacts have now been donated to the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum in London, where they will be displayed at the new David Bowie Centre at the V&A East Storehouse in Hackney Wick starting September 13, 2025.
So, what exactly is The Spectator? Bowie described it in his notes as an “18th-century musical” set in London, a city whose “manners and fads” during the 1700s captivated him. The musical appears to be inspired by the periodical of the same name, which ran between 1711 and 1712, documenting the quirks and customs of London society. Bowie’s fascination with crime and punishment is evident throughout the project: he sketched out a cast of characters drawn from history and legend, including the notorious folk-hero thief and jailbreaker “Honest” Jack Sheppard and Jonathan Wild, the infamous criminal mastermind who orchestrated Sheppard’s downfall.
According to Rolling Stone, Bowie’s notes blend fact and fiction, considering not only Sheppard and Wild but also referencing the Mohocks—a violent gang of upper-class youths who terrorized Londoners—and historic events like the Gordon Riots of 1780. One particularly vivid scene imagined by Bowie involves a public hanging, with “surgeons fighting over corpses,” a grim tableau that underscores his interest in the macabre intersections of law, society, and spectacle. In another notebook, he even ranked stories from the original Spectator periodical, weighing their potential as subplots for his musical.
The project, as Mixmag reports, was entirely unknown to Bowie’s collaborators and friends. Its secrecy underscores Bowie’s intensely personal approach to his late-stage creativity. The notes, written on post-it notes and pinned to the walls of his study, were left undisturbed until archivists began cataloguing his belongings after his death. These materials, along with the desk where Bowie worked, will soon be available for public viewing—a rare glimpse into the private world of an artist whose public persona was ever-shifting.
Why an 18th-century London musical? Bowie’s lifelong fascination with theatre and the dramatic arts is well documented. In a 2002 interview with BBC Radio 4’s John Wilson, Bowie reflected, “Right at the very beginning, I really wanted to write for theatre. And I guess I could have just written for theatre in my living room—but I think the intent was [always] to have a pretty big audience.” Theatre, particularly musical theatre, was a formative influence: Bowie studied under avant-garde performer Lindsay Kemp and early in his career emulated singer-songwriter and actor Anthony Newley. He even completed another musical, Lazarus, which premiered Off-Broadway in November 2015, just months before his death.
The content of The Spectator suggests Bowie was interested in more than just the surface trappings of history. Madeleine Haddon, lead curator at the V&A, told the BBC that Bowie’s notes reveal a deep engagement with the evolution of art and satire in the early 18th century. “It seems he was thinking, ‘What is the role of artists within this period? How are artists creating a kind of satirical commentary?’” Haddon observed. She also noted that musicals of that era were often vehicles for political satire, and speculated that Bowie, working on the project in the U.S. during 2015’s turbulent political climate, may have been contemplating the power of art to effect change.
Bowie’s notes also hint at his fascination with the social juxtapositions of London at the time. Professor Bob Harris, an 18th-century specialist at the University of Oxford, told Rolling Stone, “London threw up so many different juxtapositions. Juxtapositions between high and low, between the virtuous and the criminal, and these things existed cheek by jowl. I think it presented so much that was beguiling to contemporaries, but also clearly that Bowie himself found fascinating.”
The upcoming exhibition at the V&A East Storehouse will showcase not just the notes and desk from The Spectator, but also 200 select items from Bowie’s vast archive, which is estimated to contain over 90,000 pieces. Fans will have the opportunity to view song lyrics, stage costumes, and other personal effects, and can even book appointments to see specific items in person. The Bowie Centre itself is an expansion of the blockbuster 2013 exhibition David Bowie Is, which became the most visited show in the museum’s history.
For those who followed Bowie’s career, the discovery of The Spectator is both a poignant reminder of his relentless creativity and a tantalizing glimpse of what might have been. While the musical remains unfinished, its themes—crime and punishment, art and satire, the collision of high and low culture—are quintessentially Bowie. The project stands as a testament to his enduring curiosity and his belief in the power of art to illuminate the complexities of society.
As the world prepares to explore Bowie’s secret final project, visitors to the V&A East Storehouse will be able to step into the artist’s private world, tracing the post-it notes on the walls where Bowie spun his last, unfinished tale. It’s a rare chance to witness the inner workings of a legend—one whose creative fire burned undimmed to the very end.
