Baz Luhrmann: 'It was time to hand Strictly Ballroom to a new generation'

Strictly Ballroom writer Baz Luhrmann said handing the West End revival of his breakthrough film to a new generation was “a burden off my shoulders”.

The acclaimed Australian director, who made his name with the 1992 film, said: “It’s a bit like George Lucas and Star Wars. I know how much drama there was and how difficult it was for him to let go.

“But there comes a point where letting it go to a new generation and letting them interpret it makes sense.”

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Luhrmann flew in from New York to see the West End version of his hit, and praised star choreographer Drew McOnie’s “joyous” production.

He said: “He has found his interpretation and his execution and I couldn’t be happier, it is such a burden off my shoulders.” Luhrmann, 55, said: “I was worried that I was going to get here so jetlagged that the poor cast would see me nodding off, but the show was so buoyant and uplifting that I had a great time.

“It was the first I have been to something I am associated with where I am in the audience.” Luhrmann, who wrote the original play that inspired his film and the musical when he was 22, admitted he had his doubts about McOnie’s plans for a new character — rollerskating MC Willy Strand, played on stage by Will Young.

“He came to me and told me about it and I said: ‘That’s quite interesting, I don’t know if it will work but do it.’ I wanted to back his creativity and his whole team. It is fundamentally the same show but they’ve taken an interpretation of it,” Luhrmann said.

“I’ve spent my life taking classical works and reinterpreting them, and if something has a universal structure to it and is any good it will be interpreted in many different ways and places.”