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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.”

Johnson, who co-founded the company Seven Bucks Productions which is collaborating on the musical, said: “Fighting With My Family feels exceptionally well suited for the stage. It’s packed with personal emotion expressed through the dynamic world of wrestling, which has always been about storytelling and connecting with a live audience … As it comes to life musically, I have no doubt it will be an absolute blast for theatregoers.”

Brittain’s previous shows include a hit musical about podcast sleuths, Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder!, which he is currently adapting for television with its co-creator Matthew Floyd Jones. Fighting With My Family is being developed by Tilted Musicals, whose co-founders Miranda Cooper and Sam Hodges said: “What we love most about this story is, at its heart, it’s about family – and all the wonderful, messy, contradictory dynamics that exist in every family. It follows in the footsteps of superb British indies like The Full Monty, Billy Elliot and Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, all of which have made terrific stage musicals.”

Bevis’s life was also the subject of a Channel 4 documentary in 2012. Last year she released a memoir, Hell in Boots: Clawing My Way Through Nine Lives, which recounted her childhood abuse and addiction problems as well as her highs and lows in the ring. In a Guardian interview she spoke about performance and controlling an audience: “You can make them hate you, love you, cry for you and you get this adrenaline rush.”

Workshops for the new musical will take place this year with a public presentation planned for 2027.