Laura Michelle Kelly – who won the 2005 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for Mary Poppins – is to head the UK cast of The Lord of the Rings next year. Ahead of its opening at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on June 19th 2007 - with over a month of previews from May 9th – it has been said that the production will have a running time of under three hours; in Canada, where the musical closed after just five and a half months, it ran at three hours forty minutes. James Loye, who played Frodo in the Toronto production, will reprise his role as Frodo Baggins with Kelly taking the role of Galadriel.
Ahead of directing Lord of the Rings, director Matthew Warchus has managed to find time to revive the 1961 farce Boeing-Boeing at the Comedy Theatre, with a cast including Frances de la Tour and Roger Allam. Produced by Sonia Friedman, the play is described as 'a bedroom farce concerning Bernard, a Parisian ladies' man juggling liaisons with French, German and American airline attendants'. Cinemagoers will recognise the three-time Olivier Award winning Frances de la Tour from her recent performance as Mrs Lintott in The History Boys, a part which won her a Tony Award on Broadway. Boeing-Boeing opens on February 15th, with previews from February 3rd.
The long anticipated UK premiere of the Sherman Brothers' musical Over Here has been postponed. Due to open at the Apollo Theatre next month starring Richard Fleeshman and Frances Ruffelle, producer Andrew Jarrett told Whatsonstage.com that problems with visas were to blame and that he is looking for a new venue for a longer West End run. Instead at the Apollo, Oscar winning actress Jessica Lange will reprise her recent Broadway role as Amanda in The Glass Menagerie. Although produced by Bill Kenwright – who produced the Broadway revival – direction will be by Rupert Goold and not David Leveaux, who directed the revival to mixed reviews. It runs from February 13th to May 19th 2007.
From one Oscar winner to another; Dame Maggie Smith will return once more to the Haymarket Theatre in the UK premiere of The Lady of Dubuque by Edward Albee. Smith, who takes the title role in the play, will be joined by Catherine McCormack and six other yet to be confirmed actors. It marks a rare revival of Albee's play, which closed on Broadway after just 12 performances in 1980. Directed by Anthony Page – whose multi-award winning production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf transferred from Broadway to London this year – the play opens for previews on March 8th and is booking for a limited three month period.
And, as if How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria didn't cause enough column inches this year, Andrew Lloyd Webber is set to return to the BBC with a new reality show called Any Dream Will Do (do I even need to say which show he's casting?). Hosted once more by Graham Norton, the show will follow the American Idol style format of auditions, heats and 10 weeks of audience voting, this time resulting in three winners; a Joseph, Narrator and Pharaoh/Elvis. The first series was great - my only question is why choose Joseph for their next show? It tours the UK almost constantly and in 2005 finished a 2 and a half year West End run; hardly desperate to be revived!
