After making a promising West End debut in a modern reworking of The Misanthrope, Keira Knightley is in talks to return to the London stage next year in a production of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour.
The play, about two schoolmistresses accused of having a lesbian relationship, was banned by several theatres in the Thirties and was later turned into a rather coy 1961 film starring Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn. Ian Rickson, who was responsible for a well-regarded revival of The Seagull on Broadway a few years ago, is mooted as the show's director.
Inevitably, perhaps, the intention is to spell out the play's subject matter in no uncertain terms in this production. "It'll be a revival for the new millennium," warns my man with the greasepaint.
Tom Levitt's notes on a scandal
There was a time when politicians caught up in scandals used to have the decency to skulk off in silence.
Tom Levitt, the former Labour MP – who, The Sunday Telegraph revealed, had claimed expenses for a Poppy Day wreath, in addition to overcharging for his mortgage – is still determined to make the episode into a drama. He has already tried to turn it into a play for Radio 4, but it came to nothing.
Now, he had turned his story into a stage play called Making Allowance, and, perversely, he will star in it himself when it goes on at the tiny New Diorama Theatre in London.
The blurb promises the "fascinating and revelatory tale behind one of the most infamous chapters in recent British Parliamentary history".
Sir Donald Sinden's hat trick of engagements
Sir Donald Sinden waits for one of his grandchildren to get married and then three announcements arrive, like buses, at the same time.
After I disclosed that Harriet and Kezia, the daughters of Sir Donald's late son, Jeremy, have both accepted marriage proposals within weeks of each other, I learn that Hal, the 30-year-old musician son of Marc, Sir Donald's second son, is to marry his girlfriend, Beth Ryan, 22, who is also a musician.
"It will make for a hectic few months next summer and there will be an awful lot of lines to learn for the speeches," laughs Sir Donald. "One was tempted to suggest that they should all do it at the same church on the same day, and be done with it, but, of course, it's not really up to me."
