IT WAS a low-budget road movie that soared to a high-camp hit.

The saga of three bitchy drag queens crossing the Australian Outback in a tarted-up bus named Priscilla captivated audiences and spawned countless drag shows when the film, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, appeared in 1994.

This week the story of Bernadette, the trio’s bossy matriarch, Mitzi, the show queen, and Felicia the naughty good-time girl returns when a lavish A$6 million (£2.4 million) musical based on the film opens at the Lyric Theatre in Sydney. And so will Priscilla, in the form of a huge bus that changes shape and colour.

Members of the team that created the film, including Stephan Elliot, the writer and director, and Lizzy Gardiner, its Oscar-winning costume designer, have combined with theatrical producers to stage the musical.

They hope that success in Sydney will spawn productions in Las Vegas and Broadway during the next 18 months, and eventually in the West End.

The musical tells the story of three drag performers who set out from Sydney in a camped-up bus. They travel thousands of kilometres west to Alice Springs to perform at a casino to an audience of rednecks.

The stunning Outback footage and the road adventures of the outrageous trio, played by Terence Stamp, Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce, gave a verve and pace to the sprawling film that became an international cult success, but none are elements that can be transferred to a musical.

The challenges have not been lost on the musical’s director, Simon Phillips, the artistic director of the Melbourne Theatre Company, who has driven in the battered old bus that starred in the film.

He said: “Many people have said, ‘What about the bus and what about the road movie quality of the piece?’ “That [the bus] will be difficult enough to put on stage, let alone the desert.” The musical relies heavily on disco tunes, sequins, stilettos, bold colours and Australian icons, as well as 380 elaborate costumes.

Liz Koops, the London-based Australian producer of the show, said she is confident that Australians are ready for another version of the story.

“Australia is less parochial than when the film came out, and we are an open and tolerant country on the whole,” she says. “It’s not a story about sexuality but about acceptance and feeling good about who you are.”

The show’s running costs will be A$500,000 (£199,000) a week — requiring a 37-week run at 65 per cent capacity just to break even. Says Koops: “Let’s put it this way: we’re keeping our fingers crossed.”