Viewers of a BBC reality TV show chose a novice Welsh actress on Saturday night to play the leading role of Maria in Andrew Lloyd Webber's revival of The sound of Music on the West End.
Following the recommendation of Webber, who also appeared on the show, the majority of more than 2 million TV viewers who cast ballots chose Connie Fisher, 23, the daughter of a military officer. She had spent the past 18 months auditioning for West End roles with no success while working in a call center.
Fisher defeated two other finalists -- Siobhan Dillon, 21, and Helena Blackman, 23 -- on Saturday night during the eighth and final episode of the BBC reality TV show How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? Performing before a live audience, they also endured the comments of three judges and Webber.
Fisher was the bookies' favorite to win the role during the live talent competition, which has been drawing about 6 million viewers per installment. Dillon, Blackman and Fisher became finalists after defeating about 2,000 women who had auditioned for the role.
Webber decided to cast an unknown actress in his <> revival after actress backed out but has been criticized by some for conducting the Pop Idol-style auditions.
Pop diva Madonna has decided to extend her charity work in Malawi to the country's water supply when she visits next month to set up an orphan care center in the southern African country, local officials said. Expectations are running high in Malawi, an impoverished country dependent on tobacco exports, as Madonna prepares to join a flood of stars searching for a good cause in the world's poorest continent.
Sir Elton John says he has made up with singer George Michael, after the two fell out over the John's suggestion that his former friend was miserable. “George and I are fine. He came and stayed down my house last year,” the flamboyant British-born star told chat-show host Michael Parkinson on ITV Thursday evening.
The two singers, who sang a famous duet during the 1995 Live Aid show, fell out after John said Michael had a “deep-rooted unhappiness” and needed to get out more. Michael responded furiously, saying their friendship was over.
Supermodel Christie Brindley began divorce proceedings against her fourth husband, architect Peter Cook, his attorney said on Thursday. Brinkley served her husband with a summons, Cook's lawyer, David Aronson said. The announcement followed revelations Cook had an affair with a teenager whom he had hired to work in his firm. Brinkley, 52, was previously married to artist Jean-Francois Allaux, singer Billy Joel and real estate developer Richard Taubman.
Thousands of Robbie Williams fans will have to wait to see the British pop star perform in Asia after organizers said Friday that concerts in China and India had been cancelled due to “stress and exhaustion.” Promoters in Shanghai said that poor health was behind Williams' decision to forego part of the Asian leg of his Close Encounters World Tour, which was to include stops in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore and Mumbai. Williams, probably best known for his hit Angels, was to take to the stage in China's economic hub of Shanghai on Nov. 4. His concert in Shanghai would have put him on the same list as the Rolling Stones, who became the biggest Western rock act to hit China when they performed in April to a sold-out audience of mostly foreigners. -- Agencies
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s