YOUNG ROMANTICS musical in development with music and lyrics by Bastille's Dan Smith

Melting Pot has announced the development of a new musical with music and lyrics by Bastille’s Dan Smith. Young Romantics is a coming-of-age musical about five complicated friends chasing creative and romantic freedom, but at what cost?

It’s a dark and stormy night at The Villa Diodati - a grand house on the shores of Lake Geneva - where five young and notorious friends – Mary Godwin, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, Claire Clairmont and Dr John Polidori - are caught in a complicated web of love triangles. Exiled from London’s polite society and sheltering from terrible storms, the Young Romantics spend one fateful week together that will have repercussions that reach us today.

When Byron suddenly challenges them all to write and share a brand-new horror story, no one realizes this little game will set in motion a dramatic night that changes all of their lives, inspiring the creation of two celebrated works of literature that will outlive them all: Frankenstein and The Vampyre.

Dan Smith said: “The events of that summer are famously fascinating - this collision of huge, young personalities, stuck together inside a big house while storms rage outside - and the more you delve into the story, the wilder and more unbelievable it becomes. Beyond the sex, fame, heartbreak, and horror stories lies a deeper exploration of youth on the edge of adulthood - full of hope, creativity, chaos and the desire to escape. Our characters are trying to make sense of the world and themselves through art, all while confronting grief, trauma, inequality, and the pressure to conform.

“These events unfolded over 200 years ago but feel strikingly modern; the more we explore this story, the more it becomes a mirror to the world we live in now. At the heart of “Young Romantics” are issues that feel increasingly pressing in 2026: freedom of speech, the right to love who you choose, gender equality, impossible beauty standards, self-representation and artistic integrity.

“Our protagonists assert their agency and act on impulse, reminding us that people in the past were every bit as bold, conflicted and reckless as we are today.”

Further details will be announced soon.