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
It is barely 10am and the queue outside Onigiri Bongo already stretches around the block. Some of the 30 or so early-bird diners sit on stools, sipping green tea and poring over laminated menus. Further back it is standing-room only. “It’s always like this,” says Yumiko Ukon, who has run this modest rice ball shop and restaurant in the Otsuka neighbourhood of Tokyo for almost half a century. “But we never run out of rice,” she adds, seated in her office near a wall clock in the shape of a rice ball with a bite taken out. Bongo, opened in 1960 by
Common sense is not that common: a recent study from the University of Pennsylvania concludes the concept is “somewhat illusory.” Researchers collected statements from various sources that had been described as “common sense” and put them to test subjects. The mixed bag of results suggested there was “little evidence that more than a small fraction of beliefs is common to more than a small fraction of people.” It’s no surprise that there are few universally shared notions of what stands to reason. People took a horse worming drug to cure COVID! They think low-traffic neighborhoods are a communist plot and call
Over the years, whole libraries of pro-People’s Republic of China (PRC) texts have been issued by commentators on “the Taiwan problem,” or the PRC’s desire to annex Taiwan. These documents have a number of features in common. They isolate Taiwan from other areas and issues of PRC expansion. They blame Taiwan’s rhetoric or behavior for PRC actions, particularly pro-Taiwan leadership and behavior. They present the brutal authoritarian state across the Taiwan Strait as conciliatory and rational. Even their historical frames are PRC propaganda. All of this, and more, colors the latest “analysis” and recommendations from the International Crisis Group, “The Widening
The sprawling port city of Kaohsiung seldom wins plaudits for its beauty or architectural history. That said, like any other metropolis of its size, it does have a number of strange or striking buildings. This article describes a few such curiosities, all but one of which I stumbled across by accident. BOMBPROOF HANGARS Just north of Kaohsiung International Airport, hidden among houses and small apartment buildings that look as though they were built between 15 and 30 years ago, are two mysterious bunker-like structures that date from the airport’s establishment as a Japanese base during World War II. Each is just about
RSS