Lost Musicals: Paris

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-oEA1sK374[/youtube]

Forget people banging on about going to see Rufus Wainwright's opera at Sadlers Wells in the next couple of weeks; the real hot ticket comes courtesy of Lost Musicals performing 'Paris' in the accompanying Lillian Bayliss Studio.

Run by Ian Marshall Fisher, Lost Musicals is a brilliant project. It is designed to find and stage musicals which have been 'lost', either literally or in memories, by some of America's greatest songwriters. Over the last 21 years, the project has staged over 70 different works and does so with the help of actors who give their time for free as well as researchers and Ian himself who trawls the world looking for songs that have been mislaid so he can reconstruct the shows.

I'm a massive Cole Porter fan and last year, Lost Musical's staging of The New Yorkers first introduced me to their project. The show takes place on Sunday afternoons with actors in evening wear, on a stage with neither a set nor props, reading from their scripts. It's a very unusual style to watch but utterly captivating.

This year, one of their three shows is another Cole Porter show and I caught it last weekend. Not quite as sharp and lively as 'The New Yorkers', 'Paris' was Porter's first Broadway show and revolves around a marriage between an American socialite and a French actress. It's the show which features possibly Porter's most famous song 'Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love)' and showcases his brilliant rhyming wit that really shines in later songs like 'You're The Top'. The show is really stolen by the socialite's mother, Cora, who at Lost Musicals was played by 'er off the tele', Anne Reid, probably best known to me as Doctor Who monster, the Plasmavore, who enjoyed sucking people's blood with a straw.

The Lost Musicals series is totally recommended and I think now a firm spring outing each year in the diary. Paris runs for three more weeks and it's followed later in the year by Lerner & Loewe's 'The Day Before Spring'.

An Education

I'm a bit rubbish at seeing films. I always think 'oooh, I'll see that' but more often than not come up with something more fun (i.e. sitting at home on the internet) to do than go to the cinema. Anyway the last film I got giddy about seeing was Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day with the gorgeous Amy Adams and knee trembling Lee Pace. Swoon your way through tearjerker 'If I Didn't Care. Ned! Pies!

Now only a year later, there's another film I'm quite into seeing. Well done me. I obviously have something for posh accents and London in bygone ages, as this time it's 'An Education'.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYkLgaQ27L8[/youtube]

The story is based around a relationship British journalist Lynn Barber had as a teenager with an older man. It's detailed in her new memoirs of the same name, but only takes up one chapter of the fascinating book. I had to read it very quickly last week at work to prepare an interview for her (an interview for the queen of interviewing!) and can hugely recommend as both an insight into the world of journalism and the very real tale of a girl growing up. The trailer seems to romanticise the relationship much more than the book does, but perhaps that's a trailer impression.

There are also two proper SCREAM (if you're a geek) castings in that trailer. I stared at Jenny (Lynn) for a while before realising she was modern day Doctor Who idol Sally Sparrow from 'Blink'. And who is that familiar voice saying 'Go to Oxford, no matter what - you'll break my heart'? It's a far from glamorous looking Adelle from Dollhouse. Plus how gorgeous does Beth Rowley look?

'An Education' is out in October. Make way for me, Mr Cinema

Beware the 456

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUMipXqC6Wo[/youtube]

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to be invited to the screening of the first episode of the next Torchwood series. Entitled 'Children of Earth' it's a mini series that will be shown on BBC One at some undisclosed point this summer. As a massive fan of the modern day Whoniverse, it was exciting enough to see the show, never mind sit next to RTD in the orange juice and pastry lobby. I knew I was going to be interviewing lovely Welshman Gareth David Lloyd who plays Ianto the next day, but to make things even better we were taken into another room after the screening for roundtable sessions with John Barrowman, Gareth, Eve Myles and RTD himself. On a table with experience telly journalists all fighting to get their questions in it was quite an experience. Also watching a show with the cast and crew is a strange experience because they find random bits HILARIOUS.

My Torchwood piece (incidentally my first ever print TV article - exciting) will be on the shelves in Attitude out next week but here are some sneaky cuts that didn't make it into the finished edition

* 'I love his tongue in my mouth.'

* 'He's been my long time lover for years, that's why we've given him more lines.'

* 'I have to walk through the Tardis...'

* 'It's in John's contract that we all look at him with doe-y eyes'

* 'That person up there on the screen has changed my life.'

* 'There are a couple more snogging scenes, but most of our time is spent saving the world'