Paul Andrew Williams's new film Song for Marion finishes location shooting, Jeanette Winterson tweets the Bible and Andrew Lloyd Webber lets schools take on Cats and Phantom
Film boom up north
Location filming has just finished on a British movie that, on paper, has all the signs of success.
Song for Marion was written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams (who made London to Brighton) and has a cast that includes Vanessa Redgrave, Terence Stamp, Christopher Eccleston and Gemma Arterton. It's a very British story about an unconventional amateur choir, a kind of choral Brassed Off.
It was filmed in the north-east, not because it is set there, but because film-makers are waking up to the area's potential.
Producer Ken Marshall told the Diary: "There are so many advantages being here as opposed to London. It's easier logistically, and it's more film-friendly. It is unbelievable how much support we've had – people have been easy to work with and really wanted things to work." It helped as well that the local agency Northern Film and Media (NFM) invested £150,000 – money it expects to recoup and reinvest.
Just two years ago, after ITV axed Wire in the Blood, the north-east was a TV and film wilderness. Over the last year things have changed radically. TV dramas United, Joe Maddison's War, Inspector George Gently and Vera were all shot there; Song for Marion used a Durham school gym as a location.
NFM, meanwhile, has decided that the old regional screen agency model is dead, and declared independence. It has a new public-private model, and deserves to succeed.
And the Lord tweeteth
In something of a first, Jeanette Winterson is to tweet the book of Genesis. She is among the writers and artists who are taking part in a project called Sixty-Six Books, which will mark the opening of the Bush theatre in its new west London venue next month.
Each was asked to respond to a book of the 400-year-old King James Bible – and what a list of contributors. Andrew Motion has been assigned the first book of Samuel, Neil LaBute has Job and Kate Mosse has Revelation. On the same bill will be Billy Bragg with his take on the book of Luke, Archbishop Rowan Williams with John and Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran with a comic play around Ephesians.
The Bush's outgoing, Donmar Warehouse-bound artistic director Josie Rourke told the Diary: "It just felt very right to open a new theatre with a huge range of voices. Everyone asks what's the opening production and it's so brilliant to be able to go: 'It's 66 writers, 24 hours of performance, 140 actors.' The scale of it is completely thrilling."
As well as being the opening performances at the new Bush home – the old Shepherd's Bush library – there will be a 12-hour performance at Westminster Abbey on 21 October.
Schooltime for the Phantom
Some good news just in from Andrew Lloyd Webber, which might prompt memories for anyone who appeared in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat as a child. For the first time, the Really Useful Group is to allow Cats and The Phantom of the Opera to be performed by schools and colleges. Great fun for the children, less entertaining perhaps for the parents forced to listen to their offspring rehearsing The Rum Tum Tugger for the zillionth time.
Joseph has been performed by schoolchildren for years. It was done at my school, and it didn't matter how much this schoolboy thought it, wanted it, dreamed it – I was not cast as Joseph. I was a brother. But not an interesting brother. It wasn't Benjamin or Judah. It might have been Dan. Boring, boring Dan. The West End's loss, I suppose.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/sep/13/this-weeks-arts-diary
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