\nBy <\/p>\n Smiling again: Amanda Holden is getting over her recent heartbreak with rehearsals for Shrek The Musical<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Amanda Holden\u2019s heart may be aching, but her funny bone is clearly still in good shape. <\/p>\n The actress and TV panellist for Britain\u2019s Got Talent was telling me about how she\u2019s been preparing for the start of rehearsals on Monday for Shrek The Musical, in which she plays screwball Princess Fiona. <\/p>\n She\u2019s been brushing up on her singing and dancing, but there was one function, she revealed, that came, well, naturally and needed no rehearsal.<\/p>\n She mentioned a word and I said: \u2018Pardon?\u2019<\/p>\n The 40-year-old star spelled it out for me again: \u2018I\u2019m a good farter.\u2019 And then threw her head back and laughed. And me along with her.<\/p>\n Princess Fiona, as fans of the Shrek movies (in which the character was voiced by Cameron Diaz) and the original Shrek books by William Steig will know, is a gaseous riot. In the musical, she and the green ogre do a romantic number in praise of passing wind.<\/p>\n \u2018I fart whenever I\u2019m asked, and I\u2019m a good farter, being a vegetarian,\u2019 she told me matter-of-factly.<\/p>\n \u2018Like every good ogre, I eat lots of greens. It\u2019s a natural function. I\u2019ve always said that.\u2019<\/p>\n Shrek The Musical marks Amanda\u2019s return to the stage for the first time since she starred in Thoroughly Modern Millie at the Shaftesbury seven years ago. (Shrek\u2019s co-director and choreographer Rob Ashford and composer Jeanine Tesori were also in the Millie team.)<\/p>\n Behind the laughter, though, there was a lingering sadness about the recent loss of her baby son seven months into her pregnancy. But Amanda, who is a real trouper, was determinedly getting on with life, and promoting her new show.<\/p>\n \u2018To be honest, just being at home with family and friends is the best tonic, the best therapy,\u2019 she told me. \u2018I\u2019m doing lots of that.\u2019<\/p>\n Shrek will run at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane from May 6, but this Sunday the theatre will be used for the revamped Olivier stage awards, backed by MasterCard, and Amanda is hoping to present one of the awards. She told me she was getting her teeth whitened, just in case. \u2018Teeth bleaching is the way forward,\u2019 she giggled.<\/p>\n Amanda herself was nominated for a Best Actress in a Musical for her Thoroughly Modern Millie.<\/p>\n She had to audition for Shrek, but requested she do so at the end of the day, as she was too nervous to perform in front of the other contenders (a regular practice afforded politely to star names).<\/p>\n She arrived at the audition on the back of a Virgin taxi bike. \u2018I said to the driver: \u201cThis won\u2019t take long. I\u2019ll probably be c***. Keep the engine running.\u201d I ran in and did it. And I was terrified, as anyone would be doing an audition.\u2019 <\/p>\n She met the creative team a\u00a0 couple more times and then went off to LA on a work project. She was breakfasting with Daniel Radcliffe and agent Sue Latimer \u2014 who represents them both \u2014 when she heard the good news. \u2018We had champagne and Daniel gave me a massive kiss. It was lovely!\u2019 <\/p>\n Amanda added: \u2018I wanted to do Fiona because she\u2019s so funny, so spiteful and she\u2019s not a whoopee Cinderella who can\u2019t do anything for herself. She doesn\u2019t really need to be rescued.\u2019<\/p>\n She also happens to be the favourite animated character of five- year-old Lexi, her daughter with husband Chris Hughes.<\/p>\n \u2018Every picture she draws at the moment is me starring as Princess Fiona. She\u2019s beyond excited. She\u2019ll have a corner of my dressing room and, if allowed, she\u2019ll be in the wings. She\u2019s the perfect audience \u2014 and my biggest critic.\u2019<\/p>\n Sadness: Amanda recently lost the baby boy she was expecting in the seventh month of her pregnancy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Lexi\u2019s had a little preview of her mother dancing. In the kitchen. One of the show\u2019s assistant choreographers has been going through her dance steps. <\/p>\n \u2018We\u2019ve been tap-dancing in our tights in my kitchen and it\u2019s amazing how much noise kicking in your stockinged feet makes. It\u2019s all gone out the window, for obvious\u00a0 reasons, so I\u2019ll have to start from scratch. There\u2019s just one big dance number for me in this one. Things don\u2019t come easy to me in the\u00a0 dancing area. I can learn lines in 30 seconds, but dance moves need a lot longer,\u2019 she told me.<\/p>\n Doing musicals is like running a marathon, and Amanda lost weight when she played Millie. But she says she doesn\u2019t engage in any\u00a0 special food regimen when she\u2019s working in a stage show.<\/p>\n \u2018When you\u2019re working you just need to eat, don\u2019t you? I love my food. I can\u2019t train that hard and not allow myself food.\u2019 She joked that because she ends the show slathered in green make-up, she won\u2019t be able to make a quick dash to a restaurant \u2018I need an hour to get it all off, so I\u2019ll be looking, literally, green around the gills.\u2019<\/p>\n Alter-ego: Animated favourite Princess Fiona – who Amanda will play on stage – as she appeared in the Shrek film series<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Amanda is rehearsing with Nigel Lindsay, who takes the title role, with Richard Blackwood as Donkey and Nigel Harman as Lord Farquaad. <\/p>\n Co-director Jason Moore will open the rehearsals and be joined by Rob Ashford once he has completed work on How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, which is in previews on Broadway with Daniel Radcliffe (who, as I said last week, has turned into a knockout song-and-dance man).<\/p>\n The London Shrek, if the creative team have learned anything, should have the best hope of success. The original New York production lost its way, but the team have been working on it relentlessly and my sense is that London will be where it will take off \u2014 particularly with Lindsay as Shrek, because he\u2019s a top-flight actor who will be able project the green giant through all those layers of prosthetics.<\/p>\n Shrek, a DreamWorks and Neal Street production, has taken \u00a32\u2009million so far, but by official opening night on June 14 it\u2019s likely to have a lot more.<\/p>\n Amanda will not appear in preview performances for a week between May 30 and June 5 because she\u2019ll be doing the live\u00a0 Britain\u2019s Got Talent finals. <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \nThere\u2019s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for Andrew Lloyd Webber\u2019s The Wizard Of Oz at the London Palladium. While the show has a healthy \u00a311\u2009million advance, the syrupy Sound Of Music raked in \u00a3750,000 the day after it opened, while The Wizard made \u00a3200,000. <\/span><\/p>\n Sound Of Music took a daily average of \u00a3200,000. The Wizard is bringing in half that. <\/p>\n If ticket sales don\u2019t increase, that \u00a311 million buffer will dissipate in a few months because weekly production costs are incredibly high.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \nJosie Rourke has been\u00a0 chosen by the Donmar Warehouse board to take over as artistic director when award-winning Michael Grandage leaves later this year. His last production will be Richard II with Eddie Redmayne. Ms Rourke, currently running the Bush in West London, worked as an assistant director at the\u00a0 Donmar with Sam Mendes and later Grandage. Her first season will begin after Richard II\u2019s last performance in early February.<\/p>\n Grandage has left the Donmar in good shape, but Rourke will take over as government cuts start to bite.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Must-see: Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket stars Sienna Miller and Sheridan Smith <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Sienna Miller, Sheridan Smith, James Purefoy, Harry Hadden-Paton, Joe Armstrong, Mark Dexter, Sarah Crowden, Emma Handy, Clive Wood<\/span> and Matthew Tennyson<\/span>, who are part of the ensemble cast in Trevor Nunn\u2019s brilliant production of Terence Rattigan\u2019s Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. I caught an early preview and was swiftly swept up in the tale of the RAF bomber crews and their wives \u2014 and one old flame \u2014 who gather at a hotel near a World War II airfield. Miller and Smith (both pictured) are excellent, with Miller\u2019s character realising that her flier\u00a0 husband needs her more than an old lover played, superbly, by Purefoy. It\u2019s truly stirring stuff and, in its own quiet way, the play\u00a0 honours the sacrifice of the boys in blue.<\/p>\n Dominic West<\/span>, who is juggling several projects including a return to the London stage in Simon Gray\u2019s award-winning classic Butley, which will run at the Duchess Theatre in June. Lindsay Posner will direct a cast that includes Penny Downie. Rehearsals start in late April. West just finished filming Abi Morgan\u2019s BBC drama The Hour, with\u00a0 co-stars Romola Garai and Ben Whishaw.\u00a0 It\u2019s set in the 1950s in a BBC Panorama-type studio and has been described as Broadcast News (the movie) meets State Of Play (the TV series). Dominic plays a newsreader\u00a0 who is brighter than folk perceive him to be.\u00a0 Right now the actor, who starred in the\u00a0 cult HBO hit The Wire, is filming drama Appropriate Adult, where he portrays mass murderer Fred West.<\/p>\n Joseph Drake<\/span>, who will portray famed ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky in Nijinsky at the Chichester Festival Theatre from July 19. Nicholas Wright has written the play based on an unproduced Terence Rattigan screenplay about Nijinsky and the impresario, Diaghilev. Wright\u2019s piece explains why Rattigan\u2019s script never went before the cameras.<\/p>\n David Suchet<\/span>, who is rumoured to be in talks about starring in a high-powered production of Eugene O\u2019Neill\u2019s great\u00a0 play Long Day\u2019s Journey Into Night, with Anthony Page directing for producers Kim Poster and Nica Burns. It\u2019s a scorcher of a play and Suchet as James Tyrone .\u2009.\u2009. well that\u2019s something to buy a ticket for. It\u2019s hoped the play will begin its run in March, 2012. Suchet is up for a Best Actor Olivier award on Sunday for his performance in Arthur Miller\u2019s All My Sons.<\/p>\n Hayley Attwell<\/span>, who plays Charlotte Rampling\u2019s daughter in the film I, Anna \u2014 a thriller set in London directed by Barnaby Southcombe, who also wrote the screenplay. The movie also stars Gabriel Byrne, Eddie Marsan, Jodhi May, Bill Milner and Honor Blackman. Hayley will be seen in the comic book feature Captain America: The First Avenger in July.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n
\nBaz Bamigboye <\/a>
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