Stephen Merchant’s wrestling film Fighting With My Family has inspired a stage musical. The new adaptation of the 2019 biopic about Saraya-Jade Bevis AKA Paige, who became a World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) champ, will feature a book and lyrics by Jon Brittain and music by Miranda Cooper and Nick Coler.
The film starred Florence Pugh as Bevis, who was born into a wrestling family in Norwich and became a WWE star in the US at 18 after a chaotic childhood. Written and directed by Merchant, it co-starred Dwayne Johnson in character as The Rock. Merchant said that when he was making the film he “always thought of it like a musical: a young woman from the ‘chorus line’ fighting to get her big break, surrounded by theatrical, larger-than-life characters and huge sweeping emotions”. Merchant said that he even approached each wrestling match in the film as if it was a new dance number, “building to a big show-stopping finale”. He added: “The team have captured the humour, grit and heart of the story in a way that feels both faithful to the film and completely fresh.”
