Edinburgh-based Fringe hit which stars real-life doctors and nurses set for two-month London run

Lifeline, which was previously known as The Mould That Changed the World, tells the story of the creation of penicillin by Scottish microbiologist Alexander Fleming -through the lens of a modern day scenario in an Edinburgh hospital.

The show, which was first originally written as a musical for school children to perform, originated at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2018 in Surgeons' Hall. In 2022, it was revived, having been adapted into a full-length musical, and achieved another sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe before touring to Washington DC.

It is now to be performed in a new iteration in a 35-performance run at the Southwark Theatre, London, off-the West End, where a chorus of real-life nurses, doctors, vets, dentists and scientists will sing alongside a professional cast.

The musical weaves together Fleming's groundbreaking discovery with the story of Jess, a junior doctor in an Edinburgh hospital, navigating the pressures of an overstretched NHS while her childhood sweetheart fights a drug-resistant infection.

Fleming, along with Howard Florey and Ernst Chain, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945. He first identified what he later named penicillin after returning from a holiday to find that a mould had contaminated a petri dish he had left out. He noticed a zone around the mould where the bacteria he was growing, staphylococcus, could not grow and subsequently found that it produced a substance that could kill bacteria.

Last year, the revamped version of the musical held a five-week run in off-Broadway theatre the Signature Theatre. During its run, it became the first musical to ever perform a number in the United Nations during a special conference on antimicrobial resistance.

Edinburgh-based composer and lyricist Robin Hiley, who co-created the original concept, said: “This musical is a fantastic celebration of the people dedicated to fighting antimicrobial resistance every day. These are the heroes working to save antibiotics for future generations, and I want audiences to hear their stories.”

Professor Dame Sally Davies, UK special envoy on antimicrobial resistance and former chief medical officer for England, said: "All of us have had our lives changed or saved by antibiotics. Antimicrobial resistance affects all of us, but public awareness does not match the scale of the threat. LifelineThe Musical is bringing the issues to life and showing that we can – and must – make a difference.”

Applications are now open for medical staff, vets and scientists who would like to audition to take part in the London production.

In 2022, the production included a number of healthcare workers from Edinburgh’s Marie Curie Hospice, as well as other Scottish healthcare settings.

"I don't think it's an understatement to say that being in the show genuinely changed my life," said Zahra, a lab manager who performed in the 2022 Edinburgh production. “It’s great to still have that network of professional connections that I can rely on at any minute because we’re still in touch.”

Bacterial antimicrobial resistance alone kills more than one million people annually worldwide, with projections that this will reach 10 million deaths per year by 2050.