Chart-topping singer Alexandra Burke, who has carved out a career as a stage star, has been picked to play the Narrator in the musical Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Her casting marks her London Palladium debut. But more significantly, it is the first time a black performer has taken on the role: a sort … Read more
Cher wants to be in the Mamma Mia 3 movie — sharing a duet with Meryl Streep. The stars, who’ve been friends since they made Silkwood in 1983, played mother and daughter in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again three years ago. Just to clarify: Cher (74) played Ruby Sheridan — mother of 71-year-old Streep’s … Read more
Maria Bakalova is no joke. She’s the real deal. The 24-year-old from the Black Sea coastal city of Burgas, in Bulgaria, has emerged as a rising star, thanks to her breakout performance in the movie Borat 2. Bakalova plays Tutar, teenage daughter of Kazakhstan’s most infamous son, Borat Sagdiyev — the delicious comic creation of … Read more
Emma Winberg wants stars ‘who are passionate about the truth’ to portray her and her late husband James Le Mesurier in a television drama being developed about the couple and their work with Syria Civil Defence, better known as the White Helmets. ‘There are so many wonderful actors out there,’ Winberg told me from her … Read more
Ian McKellen, the last of the great theatrical knights still performing centre stage, revealed he’s fighting fit and ready to take on the role of Hamlet — 50 years after he first played the youthful Dane. ‘I do Pilates three times a week, and I have a trainer twice a week — all long distance … Read more
Fans of Abba have been ‘blue since the day we parted’ from the mother of all popular musicals, Mamma Mia! But — here we go again — take heart, because the show is returning, for a limited run, in the 100-acre grounds of one of the country’s grandest stately homes. Judy Craymer, the brains behind … Read more
Up-and-coming young star Darci Shaw was unfazed by the frightening goingson during the filming of Netflix’s riveting supernatural thriller The Irregulars. ‘You’re working with people with blood all over their face,’ she said of shooting the eight-part drama, which will stream from March 26. ‘But then you also see them at the catering truck, eating … Read more
Bridgerton star Ruby Barker would one day love to write to the parents, who put her up for adoption as a baby, to let them know she ‘turned out alright’. The 24-year-old plays Miss Marina Thompson, the spirited country cousin who arrives in Regency London concealing a scandalous secret in the Netflix series. And she is … Read more
Alfred Enoch is discovering that not only does the devil get the best lines, he gets the best clothes, too. Enoch, who played Gryffindor good guy Dean Thomas in the Harry Potter films, is a fan of the louche looks he displays in an updated filmed play of Oscar Wilde’s 19th-century tale of depravity, The Picture … Read more
Tahar Rahim ensured his co-stars were scared of him when playing a killer in BBC hit drama The Serpent — by giving them the cold shoulder. For the first two weeks of filming the mini-series about sinister Charles Sobhraj and his murder sprees along South-east Asia’s hippie trail with accomplice Marie-Andrée Leclerc (Jenna Coleman), Rahim … Read more