Now that he has turned down the adult male lead in Alan Parker's film of Angela's Ashes, Liam Neeson is developing a film project with his wife, Natasha Richardson. Backstage at the Broadhurst theatre in Manhattan last week, after a performance of The Judas Kiss, the Irish actor said that he had seriously considered taking the role but as soon as he finishes his run on Broadway he is committed to spending another few weeks working on George Lucas's new Star Wars movie, and then he is planning a break with his wife. It is no coincidence, therefore, that on August 2nd, when he comes to the end of the scheduled run of The Judas Kiss, Richardson will be bowing out as Sally Bowles in Cabaret (the role which last month won her a Tony award as best actress in a musical) to be replaced by Jennifer Jason Leigh.
When I saw The Judas Kiss last week, Neeson deservedly received a standing ovation for his thoughtful and touching performance as Oscar Wilde - the most human and credible Wilde I have seen on stage or on film - as David Hare's underrated play follows him from an exuberant optimist in London, 1895, to a broken, disillusioned man in Italy two years later.
Impressively designed by Bob Crowley and beautifully lit by Mark Henderson, Richard Eyre's production is undermined by the miscasting of the other key roles - Tom Hollander's grating, ineffectual Bosie and Peter Capaldi's one-note Robbie Ross. Neeson will next be seen on our screens opposite Uma Thurman and Geoffrey Rush in Bille August's film of Les Miserables, due here next month, while Natasha Richardson co-stars with Dennis Quaid in Disney's remake of The Parent Trap, which opens in the US next Wednesday and here at Christmas.
Neeson and Richardson next plan to work together on screen in Asylum, an adaptation of the Patrick McGrath novel now in development. She will play the wife of the superintendent of an English mental asylum who risks her marriage and her life when she gets involved in a torrid affair with an artist (Neeson) convicted of murdering his wife.
Meanwhile, back at the Broadhurst theatre, at least 60 members of the audience, most of them women, waited patiently for Neeson to emerge from the building. He happily signed all their programmes.
The most thrilling visual spectacle on Broadway has to be The Lion King, the musical based on Disney's animated cartoon feature. The winner of six Tony awards last month, including best musical, The Lion King is an exhilarating entertainment all the way from its showstopping opening-sequence, a tour de force most directors would save for the finale. But there is a wealth of creative imagination and some marvellous puppetry to follow. The show marks out as a unique talent its director, Julie Taymor - who also designed the costumes and collaborated on the mask and puppet design, and on some of the songs. Her imminent feature film of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus is a highly enticing prospect.
The new hot ticket on Broadway is another Shakespeare play, Nicholas Hytner's sexy production of Twelfth Night, which opened last week at Lincoln Centre and is heavily booked to the end of its short run on August 30th. Hytner, who directed Carousel, Miss Saigon and The Cripple Of Inishmaan for the stage and The Madness Of King George and The Crucible for the cinema, features a swimming pool as part of his radical set - into which Paul Rudd's Orsino takes a dip in a purple thong. Rudd stars in Hytner's latest film, The Object Of My Affection, which went on Irish release yesterday.
Joining Rudd in the cast of Twelfth Night are Helen Hunt, an Oscar winner this year for As Good As It Gets, as Viola, along with Kyra Sedgwick as Olivia, Philip Bosco as Malvolio, and Brian Murray as Sir Toby Belch.
Taste, to paraphrase Mae West, has nothing to do with There's Something About Mary, the new hit movie which opened across the US last weekend. There is something to offend just about everyone in this provocative comedy from Bobby and Peter Farrelly, and anyone who has seen their Dumb And Dumber and Kingpin will have an idea of what to expect. In this, the least PC movie since, well, Kingpin, Cameron Diaz is characteristically radiant as a young woman who is the object of desire for a number of men, played by Ben Stiller, Matt Dillon, Lee Evans and Chris Elliott. The movie arrives here in September.
Movie soundtracks are proving more and more lucrative, so much so that the US album charts recently featured five soundtracks in the top 10 - the chart-topping City Of Angels, Hope Floats, Godzilla, Bulworth and the current number one, Armageddon. The Dr Dolittle album has now joined them. But this is not a new phenomenon. The US top 10 albums for June 26th, 1965, also featured five soundtracks, led by Mary Poppins at No 1 including The Sound of Music, Goldfinger, My Fair Lady and the Elvis Presley vehicle, Girl Happy.
So what's the best sports movie of all time? The surprise chart-topper in a poll conducted by USA Today is the 1986 basketball picture Hoosiers (released here as Best Shot), starring Gene Hackman as the stoic coach. In second place is Phil Alden Robinson's wonderful Field of Dreams, followed by The Natural, Rocky, Bull Durham, Brian's Song, Caddyshack (!) and, at a surprisingly lowly tenth, Raging Bull.
Manhattan, the subject of so many cinematic valentines from Woody Allen, is buzzing with stories of cost-cutting in the Allen camp. The New York Times has reported that Allen is losing such key regular creative personnel as his lighting cameraman Carlo DiPalma, film editor Susan E. Morse and producer Robert Greenhut.
Even though Allen's movies are made on relatively modest budgets of around $20 million each - a remarkably low figure given the stellar casts he attracts - the pressure is on for him to bring his films in for even lower budgets. Part of the problem is that Allen's movies, with few exceptions, have failed to make substantial profits in the US, although they generally fare better in Europe.
"We're in a state of major emergency," responded a tongue-in-cheek Allen in a letter to Newsweek. "The crews go without coffee or sometimes even water. We can't afford actual technicians so we've assigned people on workfare to do all the costumes and sets. The lights are worked by Mexican aliens who we house in a bunk."
However, expectations are higher than usual for Allen's next movie, Celebrity, which opens in the US in October. One of its cast just happens to be Leonardo DiCaprio whom Allen hired before Titanic was released. Whatever the outcome, Allen is proceeding with his next movie, which features Sean Penn as a jazz musician in the 1930s.
