The Rise and Fall of George Hudson

The Rise and Fall of George Hudson is an unreleased stage-play for a musical co-written by George Hudson and Howard Taft. It chronicles the life of the 19th century railway financier George Hudson across two acts. The story and songs were devised throughout the 1990s by the pair, submitting a first draft to various theater companies in 1995, however this was put on hold after the reformation of Creosote that same year.

A series of rewrites were undertaken starting in 1999, with a finalized script in 2001. The musical was described as 'frighteningly ambitious', calling for a chorus of 80 choir singers and towering metallic sets to represent industrial England. The music itself was technically challenging, and there were serious questions about re-casting George Hudson for an operatically trained singer. The project's tremendous scope appears to have been the main reason it was never brought to the stage in the early 2000s, especially after The Railway King's further album work from 2003 took over as the duo's primary musical output.

There were also concerns that audiences would be confused by the musical, with the modern day George Hudson being far more famous than the one being showcased, this being worsened by the starring of Hudson himself in the play. In a 2018 interview Taft stated, 'It was a very extravagant mess in many ways, but much of the music was extremely strong, especially the tragic numbers towards the end. We've spoken about it recently and we reckon to do it now we'd probably use a younger actor earlier in the play then have George come in later as the old Hudson.'.

When questioned on whether the show would ever see the light of day he responded, I'm not making any promises, but its still something we really want to do.'.