John Slim's amateur stage round-up
DO we detect a young man with a bright future in theatre?
Dudley's Joe Hancock, a 19-year-old drama student at the University of Manchester, is one of seven who have been chosen from 250 to take part in the Old Vic's New Voices project.
He was the youngest applicant and up against many university and drama school graduates already working in fringe theatre.
After a gruelling audition process, he was selected to direct a play for one night there - and he will not have any preconceived ideas to fall back on because at the moment the play does not exist.
It will be written between midnight tomorrow and 6.30am on Sunday. Rehearsals will be all day on Sunday and the show has to be ready for performance that evening.
Joe has been a member of Wolverhampton's Central Youth Theatre since he was 15, and was an 'apprentice assistant director' for the group's major production of The Supreme Sunbeam at the city's Grand Theatre last September.
CYT Director Jane Ward said: "We are really delighted that Joe has got this opportunity so early in his career. To be the youngest one selected is really amazing. We wish him lots of luck with the project"
* Coleshill Operatic Society's Andrew Alton has done a double take for the group's production of Crazy for You. He has taken responsibility for directing the show - and he is taking the lead role.
Apart from being in charge of this spectacular Gershwin musical, he is having to get to grips with his tap-dancing.
This is the show that is packed with well-known numbers such as I Got Rhythm, Naughty Baby, They Can't Take That Away from Me, Nice Work if You Can Get It, Embraceable You and Someone to Watch Over Me.
It will be at Solihull Library Theatre from April 14-19.
* Birmingham's Crescent Theatre has gone out of its way to give advance notice of a rarely-seen show.
The Breath of Life, by David Hare, which will not open as a studio production until May 31, is about two women who have met only once before but who happen to love the same man - the ex-husband of one of them.
One of them, a novelist, is looking for answers to questions and the other one is afraid that these will form the basis of a new novel. Inevitably, I suppose, they both find out more than they expected about each other, about themselves and about their love for a man called Martin.
David Hare has had a string of successes in the nearly 40 years since Slag earned him the Evening Standard Award for the best new playwright. His version of Schnitzler's La Ronde clearly achieved a bonus by offering Nicole Kidman in the altogether.
* I AM seeking to contact David John Mallett, who is in remission from cancer and will be 70 on April 23, in connection with a book he is writing. He is a former senior tutor at a group management centre in the tobacco industry in East Sussex. If anyone can guide me on my way, I shall be grateful.
Share
