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Jason Manford took to the This Morning sofa yesterday (15 September 2025) to give an update on his new musical about Captain Hook.

The show is an origin story about Captain Hook, the baddie from JM Barrie’s Peter Pan, and Manford is writing the show with Take That’s Gary Barlow and musician Joe Stilgoe.

Jason said that by the end of next year we might be able to see “some snippets” from the show, which will be a “Wicked-style take on Captain Hook”, showing how he became the baddie of the story.

Jason Manford first talked about the show in March, saying that, “We’re writing a musical about Captain Hook. I played him in panto one year, and I thought ‘I like this guy’, you know, he’s a good character. Why has nobody sort of done an origin story, you know? So, yeah we just got me and Gary had been writing a couple of other projects, and we both just really like this one. So it just came up, and we thought, why not? I don’t know if I will take the lead, part of me is hoping to just be the writer and, you know, so it can just be on, and I can be at home. But we are just writing that now, with another guy called Joe Stilgoe who’s a brilliant pianist and lyricist, and just seeing that, seeing where that goes.”

Jason Manford is no stranger to musicals, having starred in last year’s concert production of Something Rotten at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, and hosting the annual National Lottery Big Night of Musicals.

He has also starred in productions of The Producers, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Guys and Dolls and Sweeney Todd.

Gary Barlow, Take That frontman and acclaimed songwriter, has written a number of musicals, including Calendar Girls, and Finding Neverland.

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Main photo: Jason Manford (Photo (c) National Lottery Big Night of Musicals, Gary Barlow (Photo - A Different Stage, by Claire Kramer Mackinnon)

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