Footballers’ Wives: The Musical

Based on the iconic ITV series, Footballers’ Wives: The Musical is a sassy new musical comedy of waggish excess. Featuring bold noughties’ fashion, attempted murder, sexual impropriety, drama, heartbreak, comedy, singing, dancing and absolutely no football, this high-energy extravaganza is buzzing with attitude and headed for Edinburgh Fringe 2025.

The show follows the fall and rise of fabulously flawed team captain’s wife Tanya Turner as she schemes to save her marriage and the career of her cheating husband against a backdrop of disastrous hen and stag nights, a Rapunzel-style fairy tale wedding and some highly irregular nursing care.

Rewind to 2002 when Premier League football was the new rock ‘n’roll-with the money, glamour and bad behaviour to match. The rise of footballers’ wages was swiftly followed by the rise of the WAGS, whether they were childhood sweethearts, glamour girls or wannabes they were the forerunners of today’s reality stars and influencers.

The 80-minute edit for Edinburgh condenses the show into a high-octane romp through the trials and tribulations of our #metoomeets #mefirst anti-heroine Tanya.

The show opens in a luxury hotel suite with a flash-forward, film noir-style teaser – with Captain’s wife Tanya Turner on a knife edge, as she steels herself for ‘a night of passion’ with we know not whom – and confesses that she never thought she’d have to commit murder to save her marriage…

After first being seen in its early stages at BEAM 2018, and then work shopped at the end of 2019, Footballers’ Wives The Musical kicked off the next phase of its development with the release of a Studio Cast Album in 2022.

Cast recording of Footballers’ Wives 2022. Donna Walmsley by Chelsea Halfpenny, Frank Laslett by Ben Richards, Tanya Turner by Alice Fearn & Salvo by Ivano Turco

And now the transfer window has finally opened up and Footballers’ Wives is heading to the Music Hall at The Assembly Rooms for Edinburgh Fringe for 2025.

With cracking music and lyrics by Kath Gotts (Bad Girls The Musical) and book by Maureen Chadwick (original creator of Footballers’ Wives, ITV; Bad Girls, ITV; Waterloo Road, BBC), this brazenly British musical is directed by Anthony Banks (The Girl on the Train, Steel Magnolias) and is primed for kick-off and serious fun.