Woman in White Ousts Les Mis from Palace???

What's the latest in the West End game of musical chairs? Kevin Colson has added to our confusion this week. In his 20 Questions interview this week, Colson says he hopes to follow his current West End run in Rat Pack Confidential with a 2004 turn in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Woman in White. Colson took part in workshops for the musical - based on Wilkie Collins' 19th-century romantic novel, with a book by Charlotte Jones, directed by former NT artistic director Trevor Nunn - at Lloyd Webber's private Sydmonton Festival. Now he tells us "I believe Les Miserables is to vacate the Palace theatre for it by moving into the Prince of Wales." That may bode well for Woman's longevity, considering Les Mis, now in its 18th year in the West End, was also originally directed by Nunn, back in his Royal Shakespeare Company days. But, last we heard, Mamma Mia! was moving to the Prince of Wales next summer once that theatre's £7 million refurbishment was complete (See News, 25 Jun 2003), thereby making way at the Prince Edward for a sandwich season of Baz Luhrmann's Broadway transfer of La boheme prior to the stage premiere of Mary Poppins (See The Goss, 2 Jul 2003). The last, a co-production between Cameron Mackintosh and Disney, is coincidentally directed by another former NT boss, Richard Eyre. It has a new book by Julian Fellowes, with George Stiles and Anthony Drewe adding to the Sherman Brothers' score, and starts workshops itself this week. So what will go where when? Only time - and perhaps Cameron Mackintosh - will tell.

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