Danny La Rue biopic in the works

Stage director and former Royal Shakespeare Company chief Adrian Noble is to work on a biopic about the famous stage dame.

Adrian – who also worked on Kate Bush’s acclaimed live comeback shows – will direct the film, which will go into production late next year.

It is being scripted by Martyn Hesford, who has written a number of TV productions including the BBC Four Kenneth Williams drama Fantabulosa!.

Danny died five years ago after becoming a familiar face on stage and on TV, and had complex web of relationships.

Adrian, whose production of Macbeth is currently being staged by the Metropolitan Opera in New York, said: “Over the course of his life Danny stood at the fulcrum of a changing British society and his story is filled with potent images where a man could dress as a woman and rub shoulders with royalty and gangsters alike. It was an intensely theatrical life that mirrored those of the stars he so fabulously captured.

“The film will take audiences from seedy post-war Soho to Danny’s relative obscurity in suburbia via the glamour of sixties London clubland and the zenith of his career as the highest paid entertainer in seventies Britain.”

The film – to be called simply Danny La Rue – is being developed by Blacklisted Films and Leopard Drama with the BFI Film Fund.

David Chikwe, creative director at Blacklisted Films, said: “We’re thrilled to secure a director of Adrian’s pedigree. Danny was very much a creature of the theatre in a grand tradition whose life was incredibly operatic in its highs and lows and Adrian will bring not only a rigour to the performances but also a unique sense of musicianship and magic.

“Our ambition is to bewitch the public all over again, much like Danny did in his inimitable shows.”