Breaking Baz: Chiwetel Ejiofor Signs On As Creative For West End-Bound Musical ‘The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind’, Newcomer Alistair Nwachukwu Cast In Titular Role

EXCLUSIVE: Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy star Chiwetel Ejiofor has joined the creative team of Royal Shakespeare Company show The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind – a project close to his heart because his directorial debut was a Netflix movie of the same title, based on the phenomenally best-selling memoir by William Kamkwamba.

Ejiofor—who directed and penned the film version, in addition to playing William’s father Trywell—has been appointed creative associate on the musical and will offer “guidance when needed and when asked,” plus he will act as the adaptation’s number-one cheerleader.

The tome, written with Bryan Mealer, charted how Kamkwamba, then aged 13, saved his rural village in Malawi from famine by building a windmill from scratch, using scavenged parts, to provide electricity to pump water and irrigate crops.

He used science, electricity and sheer determination to keep the community of Wimbe from starvation.

Newcomer Alistair Nwachukwu will portray William in the musical that’s directed by award-winning Lynette Linton, with book and lyrics by Richy Hughes and music and lyrics by Tim Sutton.

The show will run at the RSC’s Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon from Feb. 10 through March 28, 2026.

The show, produced in association with West End producer Kenny Wax and Chuchu Nwagu Productions, has already secured a home in town. Nimax Theatre chief Nica Burns will transfer The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind into Nimax-run theater @sohoplace from April 25 through July 18. It’s the first musical blessed by RSC co-artistic directors Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey, who took over the celebrated theater institution over a year ago.

Ejiofor has long been involved with the story, having read the book after attending its launch party in the US in 2009. After reading it, he says he found himself “falling down the rabbit hole of William Kamkwamba, his journey, his life, Malawi, the village of Wimbe, all of it.”

The actor, who starred in 12 Years a Slave, Dirty Pretty Things, The Old Guard, The Life of Chuck – and he’s so good opposite Renée Zellweger and Leo Woodall in the Bridget Jones picture – says it’s incredible “to see The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind in this iteration all these years later, and its continuing relevance and engagement with people. It’s really remarkable.”

The actor spoke of Kamkwamba’s “imagination, his intelligence, his tenacity, his refusal to say ‘no.’ What I think I loved about it right from the beginning was that it wasn’t just a child who’s in rebellion… It’s about somebody who’s so deeply involved in the kind of cultural dynamics and the respect that William still has with his father, even though they’re in different generations, they see the world in very different ways, but they’re able to communicate across these kinds of divides in these really remarkable, respectful moving ways. So, it was all of it. It was the cultural context of Malawi and then also William’s intellect and his ability and his tenacity,” Ejiofor tells me.

He recalls shooting on location in William’s hometown, but they weren’t able to film in the lad’s actual house “because some of his windmills were still up, so we couldn’t do the historical part before the windmills came up… we shot in his cousin’s place, which was just a little bit down the road. Their family fields backed onto each other, so the real Trywell would be there as we were shooting scenes. And so, it was really great, and everybody was so supportive, and that’s what you need when you’re trying to make a film like that, which is a circus coming to this village in Malawi. You sort of need everybody to be really on board.”

The reason he has always felt close to the film, those involved in the real-life story and his collaborators at Potboiler Productions, he believes, is because “it was something that I kind of built from the ground up as a film.”

He adds, “I read the book and then brought people on board to start the process of getting it made… But underneath all of that, I just think it’s such a meaningful story, and I think I was so completely inspired by the way people respond to the story and how they have all over the world, just how this story has impacted and influenced conversations, how it has changed lives.”

Ejiofor notes that Maxwell Simba, who plays William in the film, followed in the real William’s footsteps by attending the African Leadership Academy, and, as with Willian, he also graduated from Dartmouth. “And he’s just finished his engineering degree,” says the actor, bursting with pride.

“And so, it’s just the effect of the story in small ways and in big ways. The levels of inspiration and things that people take away from it are just incredible,” he marvels.

It’s fascinating that the story has endured and shows that if people can build the right tools, stuff gets done.

Ejiofor smiles at that. “It shouldn’t be something that needs saying, but it turns out that it does need saying that there is talent and skill and capacity everywhere, that every place on the planet has this enormous wealth of human resource and ability, but some people don’t have the opportunity to access that as easily. So, the sort of assistance to that access point can change the world. And William’s story really kind of profoundly represents that,” he says.

Ejiofor says that he’s had some great conversations with theatrical producer Kenny Wax, and Tim Sutton and Richy Hughes. “I’m a resource and a support in any way that they need. And they have sent me materials for input along the way, but it is very much their thing and I’m very much there as a kind of creative support system to the entire team.”

He has attended workshops and heard most of the score and has read the show’s book. “And so, I’ve been able to just engage with it, which has been amazing.”

I ask if he got on down and shook it about to the music, as it were?

Giving me a slight Mr. Walliker look-the teacher he plays in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy-“You might start to sway a little bit. You might start to smile. You feel the rhythm in your soul. And so, I think that that is, in many ways, the kind of rhythm of the film, is that, by the end of it, you kind of want to get up and cheer,” he says laughing.

He met Nwachukwu during a workshop and was mightily impressed.

“You want to sort of dance along with him in his achievement,” he says. “He looked fabulous,”  he adds and he suggests that “audiences are in for a treat because of the energy that Alistair brings, the warmth, all of those things, and the intelligence.”

And he didn’t rule out the possibility of, perhaps exploring a movie of the musical. “The next layering,” he chuckled.

“You never know. I do think it lends itself so beautifully to understanding what’s going on. And I think the music also reflects in a way, just that optimism. It reflects a lot of that hopefulness….”

Speaking of Nwachukwu, I caught up with him in between performances of Michael Grandage’s production of The Line of Beautyadapted by Jack Holden from Alan Hollinghurst’s novel, which is on at the Almeida Theatre.

Lynette Linton picked him two years ago to appear in several workshops of The Boy Who Harnessed the Windand then three months ago, she cast him in the key role.

He says he’s excited about the show’s score and tells us that some of the songs are so good that they “are going to be on repeat” once audiences hear them.

The newcomer trained at the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art but he reveals that “my mum brought me up in the church” and that’s where he found his voice singing in the choir. In fact, he appeared in Choir Boy at the Bristol Old Vic.

But, he says, after singing in church the folk at LAMDA, “they kind of refined my voice and I’m taking more singing lessons because I’ve never done a professional musical before.”

He’s a tenor, and he says Michael Jackson, Prince and Stevie Wonder are his heroes. “They’re the guys that I listen to every day.” Classic soul and R&B are his thing. He loves some Ray Charles and James Brown, he says. “These guys! We don’t make musicians like that anymore,” he says as we chew the fat, weighing up contemporary and classic artists.

Before turning to acting, he played right wing and up front for Millwall football club in south London and was close to getting a professional contract when he snapped his femur and dislocated his knee, which means he still has two pins in his right leg.

His acting credits include an episode of NCIS: Tony & Zivaand he stars with Miriam Margolyes and Stephen Fry in the charming short film A Friend of Dorothywritten and directed by Lee Knight.

But simply put, landing the titular role in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind for the Royal Shakespeare is pretty darn big. And he’s with Olivia Homan at United Agents, to boot.

And, more important than any of that, he supports Arsenal!

He’s lucky enough to have met William in the flesh. “He’s such a humble man. So humble, so quiet, so reserved. Keeps himself to himself. But [his words of wisdom] were: ‘Just come from the heart.’”

Linton, who has also staged shows at the National Theatre, the Donmar Warehouse and elsewhere, recently stepped down as artistic director of the Bush Theatre. The acclaimed director is also developing projects for the screen.

She sent me a statement because she’s hard to pin down due to a crazy busy rehearsal schedule.

Linton says that she has “felt so inspired by William’s story, it’s a true testament that with imagination and tenacity you really can achieve anything. The most important thing for me is that this production comes from the heart, and I cannot wait to collaborate with such incredible artists to create this show.  William’s story has the power to influence and impact change across the world and so to be bringing the story to life on stage in the next phase of its journey is an incredible responsibility and an honour.”.

Other members of the Kamkwamba family are portrayed by Madeline Appiah, Tsemaye Bob-Egbe and Sifiso Mazibuko.