Adrian Mole musical to go ahead after death of Sue Townsend, who was writing a new book

The 2015 production will be 'an amazing tribute' to the popular author

Gian Sammarco plays Adrian Mole in 'The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole' (Rex Features)

A planned Adrian Mole musical is set to go ahead after author Sue Townsend’s death last week.

Based on the diary on the teenager’s diary, the production has been in the pipeline at Leicester’s Curve theatre for the “past couple of years”.

“It’s been commissioned, it’s written,” said Fiona Allen, chief executive. “It has a producer and director and (Townsend) really was working as the lead creative on this project.

“Obviously we need to be sensitive to timings, but the project will go ahead. We are looking at spring next year and that would be an amazing tribute to the woman.”

Townsend died on Thursday night aged 68 after suffering a stroke. Her first novel, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4, was published in 1982 and, along with its seven sequels, has sold more than eight million copies worldwide.

She was working on a new book for the series, due for publication this autumn, with the working title Pandora’s Box. Pandora is Adrian’s long-standing schoolboy crush.

It remains unknown whether a first draft had been completed, but Townsend had sent “a few wonderful pages” to her editor Louise Moore.

“We can confirm that Sue was in the middle of writing the book,” a spokesperson for publisher Michael Joseph said. “We are very sad that we won’t be able to show it to the world.”