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Two new stage productions of Anthony Burgess’s classic novel A Clockwork Orange will be appearing in the coming year.

To mark the book’s 50th anniversary next year, graduates of the Royal Northern College of Music will stage the author’s own musical adaptation of the story, while a separate production, by Theatre Royal Stratford East, will open this September with words by Ed DuRante and music by Fred Carl.

A Clockwork Orange was published in 1962, and was filmed by Stanley Kubrick in 1971. The movie was linked to acts of violence, and Kubrick withdrew it from circulation in the United Kingdom. Burgess wrote his own adaptation for the stage, which was accompanied by a musical score by U2’s Bono and The Edge in a 1990 production, which retains the ending of the book rather than the revised conclusion created by Kubrick.

The new production will use Burgess’s own music, composed before his death in 1993. Dr Andrew Biswell, director of the International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester, told the BBC, “The music is really important because it establishes a tone and a mood. It’s pretty close to West Side Story – that’s one of the obvious influences on it. There’s this scene in prison, where one of the prisoners is kicked to death, which is very throwaway and jolly. That’s completely different from the corresponding episode in the film, which is very gloomy and depressing.”

Talking about their own updating of the story, the Theatre Royal Stratford East’s artistic director Kerry Michael told The Stage, “We’ve gone back to the novel as our source material. In the novel, there’s a final chapter about redemption and hope and possibility. That last chapter is why we are doing it. There’s no point telling people that young people are bad.”