It’s been a winning formula for a couple of years now…

Take a hit West End musical, and transform it into a high budget glitzy movie starring Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones or Pears Brosnan. Then sit back on your private yacht with the champagne and Honeyz all around, and watch the $$$$ roll in.

I can almost hear the unscrupulous movie producers’ distorted minds ticking over through the din of cocaine-induced jitters and gurning: “It worked with Chicago, now let’s do it with The Producers. It kind of worked with The Producers, now let’s do it with Mamma Mia!. And by God did it work with Mamma Mia!, let’s do it with Wicked next fall.”

So basically this concept works out great for all involved, Catherine Zeta-Jones is happy because she becomes even more worthy of her marriage to ‘alleged’ sex addict Michael Douglas; the movie producers are happy because they can pay the tab on their lives of sin and debauchery; and the shows are grateful for the additional interest, because there is no denying that movie exposure puts fresh pink booty on seats.

But an interesting role reversal has been taking place recently, because now it seems that kind and virtuous West End theatre producers (who seem in most ways to be the direct opposites of their movie counterparts) are returning the favour, and using some of cinemas best-loved offerings as inspiration for new shows. The first of these being Rain Man at the Apollo Theatre, based on the Oscar-winning film staring Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman, closely followed by Edward Scissorhands in December (although it was actually on stage a while back, too), and an exciting production of Sister Act proposed for the New Year. Read more

We all know what happens to the winners of such find-the-next-West-End-star reality television programmes as Any Dream Will Do, How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? and I’d Do Anything… they grace the stage with the sweet-sounding singing and delightful dancing for months and months and months… Lee ‘Joseph’ Mead is still getting knickers of amazing colours (and sizes) thrown at him at the Adelphi Theatre, Connie ‘Maria’ Fisher enjoyed a year and a half at the London Palladium before moving on to other projects, and the nation is holding its breath for Jodie ‘Nancy’ Prenger to take us back to Dickensian London in OLIVER!.

But what happens to the losers? Oooh, no, that sounds too harsh – let’s call ‘em ‘close runners-up’. Where are they now? Well, I’m happy to say a lot of them are doing very well (he says smoothly, as if he has Sex and the City-style cocktail nights with them all on a regular basis)…

Rachel Tucker

Who narrowly missed being cast as Nancy, has just landed herself her first West End leading lady role. The Belfast-born brunette bombshell (not easy to say after a few SATC-style cocktails) takes over the part of the sassy rebel ‘Meat’ in Queen and Ben Elton’s hit musical WE WILL ROCK YOU from Monday 22nd September.  She told me (okay, so she told everyone else, too): “It is a dream part. WE WILL ROCK YOU is one of my favourite shows. I first saw it when I was a student at the Royal Academy [name-dropper], and loved it. I am beside myself with excitement. I just can’t believe it.” Well, believe it, baby, ‘cos I’m gonna be there on the front row with a pair of highly aerodynamic Y-fronts at the ready… As the great Freddie Mercury once sung: “I am a sex machine ready to reload, like an atom bomb, about to oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, explode.” Read more

No Man’s Land: Those of you who have been watching this blog like little hawks during its early thrashings of life over the past couple of weeks, will have surely seen (and no doubt thoroughly enjoyed) the post in which we ingeniously asked the question: “Can we take comedians seriously in London’s West End?”

So today, by way of a follow-up, I can present some exclusive rehearsal pictures from one of the exciting productions mentioned in that article - the much-anticipated No Man’s Land. This is the production of the Harold Pinter penned play starring funny man David Walliams, as well Michael Gambon, David Bradley and Nick Dunning.

“How is this possible?!” I hear you ask “Is Discount Theatre literally in league with the Devil?!” you scream, “How on earth could such amazing images have been procured without the aid of torture and tyranny?!”

Well, keep your hair on for just a minute and I will tell all… Read more