Home Top

Having a ball! Stunning Michelle Obama and pregnant Priscilla Chan steal the show - as the titans of Silicon Valley and Hollywood gather for spectacular state dinner in honor of Chinese leader
EXCLUSIVE: Another FOUR women accuse Saudi prince of sex crimes after neighbors saw 'bleeding woman trying to climb out of his $37m Beverly Hills compound'
Go to Mars and back on ONE tank of fuel: Student creates radical ion drive system that he says outperforms Nasa's engines
Now MORE Hillary Clinton emails surface - between her and disgraced general David Petraeus - after she swore she turned over 'all of them'
Michael Sam says he 'would still be in the NFL' if he hadn't come out after stepping away from the Canadian Football League
First women to pass Ranger School were given extra training and lowered benchmarks after general vowed 'at least one of them will pass', report claims
Germany in a state of SIEGE: Merkel was cheered when she opened the floodgates to migrants. Now, with gangs of men roaming the streets and young German women being told to cover up, the mood's changing
Syrian rebel commander who completed a US training program admits to giving military equipment to an al-Qaida affiliate
United passengers 'disgusted' to find a FULL sick bag in their seatback pocket that spilled all over them
Delta Air Lines flight from Baltimore to Atlanta delayed after escaped TARANTULA was spotted by baggage handlers
Aaron Sorkin hits back at Tim Cook in row over Jobs film: Director says CEO has 'a lot of nerve' and accuses him of having 'a factory full of children in China assembling phones for 17 cents an hour'
The heavens smile down on Pope Francis: Dozens of 'rainbows' appear above New York as huge crowds flock to see the Pontiff
Holy water: Congressman steals Pope Francis' glass after White House address to sip remaining liquid with his wife - and then saves some to sprinkle on his grandchildren
The pope honors the 3,000 9/11 victims with interfaith ceremony in the foundations of the fallen Twin Towers
'He can come if he wants': Catholic couple who planned Central Park wedding reception to share special day with 80,000 Pope fans
Pope urges the end of nuclear weapons and protection of the unborn as he lectures world leaders about global warming, Christian persecution, drug trafficking and a 'Pandora's Box' in abusing the UN
An 'overwhelming' crowd of 80,000 people gathers to see the Pope in Central Park ahead of his huge mass at Madison Square Garden
Are you one of life's worriers? Your parents could be to blame for passing on anxiety through their genes
'I started having sex to pay back my student loans': Six escorts lift the lid on their lives since Rentboy.com was shut down
Manhattan heiress leaves $50,000 to each her nail technician, hairstylist and doorman in extensive handwritten will
Top NY prosecutor, 35, found guilty of choking woman in Halloween bar brawl while he was dressed as Superman
Mother 'murders her 17-year-old son as they move out of their home': Woman accused of shooting teen in the back as they packed up their house because of money problems
Cancer drug 'lets terminal patients live normal lives' even if they've been given just months to live
What happens when you go on autopilot: Researchers reveal the region of the brain that controls our daily routine

Royal intrigue in the bedchamber for acting aristocrats Kate Winslet and Emma Stone

Published: 17:30 EST, 24 September 2015 | Updated: 19:00 EST, 24 September 2015

View
comments

Kate Winslet Olivia Colman and Emma Stone will be caught up in incendiary court intrigue when they go before the cameras to shoot The Favourite, a film about ruthless royal scheming during the reign of Queen Anne.

Oscar-winner Winslet is in negotiations to portray the politically savvy Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who used her position as lady of the bedchamber to influence the monarch.

But the Queen, to be played by Colman, outsmarted her by promoting lowly courtier Abigail Hill (Stone), who went on to make herself indispensable to Anne and usurped the dangerous Duchess.

Scroll down for video

Scheming rivals: Emma Stone and Kate Winslet are reportedly set to go head to head as they play ladies in waiting to Queen Anne, portrayed by Olivia Colman

Ironically, the Duchess had recommended Abigail, her distant cousin, for a job in the Royal Household when she was in her teens — something Sarah came to regret bitterly.

More from Baz Bamigboye for the Daily Mail...

It sounds like All About Eve for the 18th century.

The Favourite is being put together by Yorgos Lanthimos, the Greek-born director everyone wants to work with, along with screenwriters Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara.

Yorgos’s film The Lobster, which stars Colin Farrell, Ben Whishaw, Rachel Weisz, Lea Seydoux and Colman again, won the Jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

This much-debated picture divided the critics, though everyone agreed on one thing: Colman’s portrait of a hotel manager overseeing weird goings-on at a strange hotel stole the picture.

The deals for the three actresses in the Queen Anne project have not been completed, but they are making themselves available to shoot the film in the spring.

Well before then, though, they will meet with big-time, multi-Oscar- winning costume designer Sandy Powell to be measured up for their gowns. However, as Lanthimos is not a conventional film-maker, this will not be the usual costume-drama fare.

The director wasn’t available for comment yesterday because he was travelling, and a spokesman for him and the producers, Ceci Dempsey, Film4 and Element Pictures, told me that it was too early to discuss the production in detail.

Winslet has two movies coming out this season: an Australian film called The Dressmaker and Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs, which features superb performances from Michael Fassbender as the co-founder of Apple and Winslet as Joanna Hoffman, his marketing guru.

Stone was in the recent Spiderman pictures, Academy Award-winning film Birdman and Woody Allen’s latest movie Irrational Man.

The Lobster will be screened at the BFI London Film Festival on October 13, and is released into Picturehouse cinemas on October 16.

As for The Favourite, Lanthimos and his creative team have clearly hit on a historical topic of much current interest. As I revealed recently, Jodhi May, Natascha McElhone and Beth Park will portray Queen Anne, the Duchess of Marlborough and Abigail Hill in Helen Edmundson’s stage play Queen Anne.

It begins performances at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan Theatre, Stratford, from November 19.

Watch out for...

One to watch: Actor Domhnall Gleeson

Domhnall Gleeson, who will star as a small-town doctor in director Lenny Abrahamson’s film version of Sarah Waters’ ghost story The Little Stranger.

The novel, set in the late Forties, has been adapted by Lucinda Coxon, who wrote the screenplay for The Danish Girl, Tom Hooper’s brilliant film about a different kind of marriage.

Abrahamson said he will make the picture in Britain next summer. ‘It’s an intelligent film that doesn’t have super-heroes or schlock,’ he told me.

Abrahamson already has a hit with the film Room, starring Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay. It was very successful at the recent Telluride and Toronto film festivals. Room will be shown at the BFI London Film Festival on October 11 to 13.

Gleeson has some big movies coming up! He’s in Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens and The Revenant, from director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (who shot Birdman).

I’m hearing great things about Revenant, which also stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy and Will Poulter.

Sara Stewart, Shaun Dooley, Finty Williams and Hari Dhillon, who star in a revival of Donald Margulies’s 2000 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Dinner With Friends, which Tom Attenborough will direct at the Park Theatre, Finsbury Park, North London, from October 27.

I caught the original New York production of this ‘uncomfortable, but also funny’ (as Attenborough put it) comedy drama, about a couple (Stewart and Dooley) forced to re-examine their 12-year marriage when the relationship of friends (Dhillon and Williams) unravels and heads for divorce.

Stewart and Dooley play food writers, and all their scenes contain commentary on what they’ve eaten (chicken tikka masala at some new hangout) or what they’re about to eat (the lemon, almond and polenta cake they’re preparing for dinner).

Margulies’s play was ahead of its time in observing what would come to be known as food porn — posting photos and comments about your meals on social media.

I hope Attenborough and his cast can capture the nuances of his work because, as the director told me, ‘it’s about making the most of one’s existence’.

Richard Fleeshman, Janie Dee, Jamie Parker, Anne Reid, Alistair Brammer, Caroline Sheen and Laura Pitt-Pulford, who are part of the company celebrating the music of Jerry Herman, Stephen Sondheim and Jule Styne in a one-night only concert, Kings Of Broadway, being put together by conductor Alex Parker and director Alastair Knights at the Palace Theatre, London, on November 29. Tickets via 08444 829 676 and nimaxtheatres.com.

Stunning first run: Sally Messham makes her stage debut as Nancy in Laura Wade’s adaptation of another Sarah Waters’ book, Tipping The Velvet

Sally Messham, who graduated from Rada this year and who makes a stunning professional stage debut as Nancy in Laura Wade’s adaptation of another Sarah Waters’ book, Tipping The Velvet.

Ms Messham’s performance is a tour de force. She’s on stage throughout and transforms from the gauche daughter of an oyster farmer to music hall performer to street walker to rich woman’s plaything and, finally, to the stage, where she can work out what love means for her.

The company includes Laura Rogers, Adelle Leonce, Amanda Hadingue, Sarah Vezmar and David Cardy, and they’re directed and choreographed by Lyndsey Turner and Alistair David.

The play is in previews at the Lyric, Hammersmith, and following its West London run will transfer to the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, from October 28.

Denise Gough, who asks a question in the final scene of Duncan Macmillan’s scorching play People, Places And Things at the National’s Dorfman Theatre.

Last Friday, the answer came not from a cast member but from someone in the audience, who shouted: ‘Excellent!’ Turns out it was Gough’s mother, and she was shouting for all of us, because Denise’s performance as an addict is dynamite. There are negotiations about director Jeremy Herrin’s terrific production transferring to a key West End playhouse.

Stephen Daldry, Lee Hall, Peter Darling, Elton John and other members of the Billy Elliot working men’s club, who are preparing to take the musical on the road, starting off at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth from February 24 through April 2. It will then go on a nine-date tour round the UK, ending at the Birmingham Hippodrome on March 7, 2017.