It will showcase some of his landmark performances plus rarely seen and never-before-exhibited material dug out from the vaults.
A new immersive exhibition called “David Bowie: You’re Not Alone” opens at London’s Lightroom on April 22, showcasing rare footage, personal notes and re‑imagined audio to present Bowie beyond his famous stage personas. Curated with unprecedented access to the Bowie estate, the show combines visual and spatial sound elements and is ticketed from £25 for adults.
The exhibition "David Bowie: You're Not Alone" opens at London's Lightroom on April 22, 2026.
It includes rarely seen performance footage, photographs, drawings, lyrics, personal notes and audio recordings from Bowie’s archive.
Director Mark Grimmer received unprecedented access from the David Bowie estate to craft the show's narrative.
David Bowie's secret final project was a musical set in 18th Century London
Notes, found locked in his study, reveal plans for a show called The Spectator
He was inspired by the contrast between the era's vibrant society and notorious crime
Fans can view the original notes at the Bowie Centre in London's V&A East.
Called The Spectator, its existence was unknown to even his closest collaborators – until the notes were discovered locked in his study in 2016. They have now been donated to the V&A Museum, with the rest of Bowie's archive, as BBC reports.
Shared exclusively with the BBC, they show Bowie's fascination with the development of art and satire in 18th Century London, alongside stories of criminal gangs and the notorious thief "Honest" Jack Sheppard.
Had it been completed, the musical would have realised one of Bowie's lifelong ambitions.
Bowie was particularly fascinated by crime and punishment.
In one note, he envisaged the aftermath of a public hanging, with "surgeons fighting over corpses".
He also considered making Jack Sheppard, a petty thief who had won the public's affection, one of the main characters. He also references "thief-taker general" Jonathan Wild, a vigilante who was responsible for Sheppard's arrest and execution.
Another possible plot point involved a "central figure" in the musical being attacked by a notorious gang known as the Mohocks.
"Right at the very beginning, I really wanted to write for theatre," he told BBC Radio 4's John Wilson in 2002.
"And I guess I could have just written for theatre in my living room – but I think the intent was [always] to have a pretty big audience."
Bowie's notes for The Spectator were found as he had left them, pinned to the walls and stored in his office in New York.
The room was always locked – only Bowie and his personal assistant had a key – so they were left undisturbed until archivists started cataloguing his belongings.
They will be available for fans and scholars to view when the David Bowie Centre opens at the V&A East Storehouse in Hackney Wick on 13 September.
"We even have the desk [where he worked] at the Storehouse, as well," says Madeleine Haddon, the collection's lead curator.
An entire notebook is devoted to The Spectator, a daily periodical that ran for 555 issues between 1711 and 1712 commenting on the manners and fads of London society.
Writing in black pen, Bowie summarised several of the publication's key essays, scoring them out of 10.
He particularly enjoyed a morality tale about two sisters – one beautiful but "vain and severe", who lost a suitor to her plain, but more agreeable, sibling.
Awarding it eight out of 10, Bowie commented, "could be a good subplot".
