Hills Alive Again with Sound of Music???

Back in September 2002, Andrew Lloyd Webber publicly announced his plans to mount a new production of classic musical The Sound of Music, opening at the West End's Victoria Palace this May (See News, 25 Sep 2003). But at the start of 2003, those plans seemed to be quietly postponed and then shelved. Apparently, after doing the maths on the 1500-seat theatre, co-producers at ClearChannel reckoned the production simply couldn't make enough at the box office. The latest rumour sees the Rodgers and Hammerstein revival resurrected at the much larger, 2200-seat Theatre Royal Drury Lane, with Laura Michelle Kelly playing nun-turned-nanny Maria, the part made famous by Julie Andrews in the 1968 film and initially touted in the revival for Maria Friedman. By October, Kelly should be filling pretty at home at Drury Lane, where she's just taken over as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. Of course, it may all come to nought. The Theatre Royal is in demand from various parties, not least its owner Cameron Mackintosh, who produces My Fair Lady and may fight to keep it installed until his own planned mounting of Mary Poppins is ready to move in.

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