She starred in the original film, not to mention the low-rent sequel, as a counterfeit nun on the run from criminal psychopaths. She became involved in the stage version as a cheerleading producer. Now Whoopi Goldberg is getting back in the habit.
theatre buzz
David Nice
Angela Lansbury is the wittiest, least self-regarding and most articulate octogenarian actress I've ever come across. That much seems clear from her half-hour interview with Mark Coles on the estimable, if sometimes rather narrow-agenda-ed BBC World Service arts programme The Strand. At 84, Lansbury has been having a whale of a time venting the laid-back disapproval of old Madame Armfeldt in Sondheim's A Little Night Music. The run at Broadway's Walter Kerr Theatre with this cast, which of course also features Catherine Zeta-Jones as her actress daughter, comes to an end on 20 June and Lansbury is tipped to glean yet another Tony as Best Featured Actress in a Broadway show.
David Nice
Above the Stag, an unpromising-looking, ominously shuttered gay pub in the ungainly heart of Victoria, a little miracle has been taking place. Word of mouth quickly sold out an intelligent adaptation of E M Forster's great coming-out novel Maurice, so the run has been extended until this Saturday. At the time of writing there were a few seats left for the final performance; as for a transfer, who knows?
Friends bought tickets for this one, so I came to it fearing all that's bad about pub theatre (and from some I've seen, it couldn't be much worse). How wrong I was. Roger Parsley and Andy Graham have selected nearly all of Forster's most significant one-to-ones. The clarity of his prose keeps datedness or sentimentality at bay, and it's much assisted by Tim McArthur's sure-footed direction as well as some first-class acting from Adam Lilley's ambivalent hero - excellent in conflict with poor sister Ada (Persia Lawson) - and from Jonathan Hansler in two consummate cameos. Unless you're fixated on the image of Rupert Graves's gamekeeper in the cagier Merchant-Ivory film - I'm not - then Stevie Raine's Alec is all that could be desired. Further details from Above the Stag Theatre's website.
Ismene Brown
Jonathan Mills has announced the programme for Edinburgh International Festival 2010, on a theme of modern culture in the New Worlds of the Americas and Australasia. Ranging from California to Canberra, New York to New Zealand, from Santiago to Samoa, the festival opens on Friday 13 August with John Adams' oratorio El Niño and closes on Sunday 5 September with the traditional fireworks concert.
Veronica Lee
Theatre lovers and theatre-history devotees alike will be delighted by the news that the Hackney Empire in east London, which went dark last month, is to be saved. A property developer will pay the theatre an unspecified sum to create 25 flats in an adjacent building it owns; there will also be offices and a community space for the use of the venue, a Grade II*-listed 1901 Frank Matcham beauty. The Empire's acting chief executive, Claire Middleton, described it as "a stabilising deal" and it will allow the theatre to regroup during 2010 before its next scheduled theatrical production, its enormously popular annual panto. A full 2011 season is expected to follow.
The announcement was made at the Barbican's launch of their 2010 season, which includes a tie-up with the Hackney Empire as part of their United in Swing programme. Wynton Marsalis will perform at the Empire on 20 June with the Jazz at the Lincoln Center Orchestra and tickets will go on sale through the Barbican shortly.
The announcement was made at the Barbican's launch of their 2010 season, which includes a tie-up with the Hackney Empire as part of their United in Swing programme. Wynton Marsalis will perform at the Empire on 20 June with the Jazz at the Lincoln Center Orchestra and tickets will go on sale through the Barbican shortly.
Matt Wolf
What do you do for an encore at a theatre awards ceremony that several years ago featured James Corden locking lips with a mighty surprised Daniel Radcliffe? The unscripted moment that had spectators buzzing at Sunday night's whatsonstage.com trophy-bearing gala at the Prince of Wales Theatre involved one theatrical knight making a rather, uh, pointed reference to another.
Matt Wolf
Jerusalem was bound for Broadway from virtually the moment the raves poured in for Jez Butterworth's career-best play and leading man Mark Rylance's career-defining star performance. So why isn't Ian Rickson's glorious production headed to New York the minute the curtain comes down on its 12-week West End run, which opens Wednesday at the Apollo?
theartsdesk
theartsdesk received a New Year's gift last night when we were given a significant accolade from BBC Radio 5 Live. In Web 2009 with Helen and Olly, the station's podcasters and self-styled "internet obsessives" Helen Zaltzman and Olly Mann recognised theartsdesk as one of the five "essential sites of 2009" in a series of awards to the "cream of weblebrity".
theartsdesk
The morning after the day before has dawned. If you're not inclined to join the shopping queues, theartsdesk is happy to suggest alternatives. Our writers recommend all sorts of cultural things you could get up to in the next week.