Colin Firth: MY FAIR LADY Broadway Revival Set for 2014; Ralph Fiennes as a 'Contender' for Henry Higgins? by broadwayworld.com

We reported earlier this year that the Nederlanders and Clive Davis were hard at work planning a 2014 Broadway revival of MY FAIR LADY, to be directed by Bartlett Sher. Sher's recent credits include South Pacific, Golden Boy, and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

At the time, Clive Davis recently announced that he was eyeing LES MISERABLES star Anne Hathaway and Colin Firth to play Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins, respectively. Firth has also starred in a big screen musical in the past, taking on Harry in 2008's MAMMA MIA. Neither actor, however, has yet starred in a Broadway production. Today, Michael Riedel reveals in the New York Post that both actors were unable to commit for more than 6 months, so the casting process has moved on elsewhere.

He writes "Ralph Fiennes has emerged as a contender for Henry Higgins. As far as I can tell, he's never done a musical before, but he's a fine actor, and as Rex Harrison famously proved, a good actor can talk-sing his way through 'I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face.'" He additionally notes that producing alongside the Nederlanders and Clive Davis will be producer Roger Berlind.

My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins, a phoneticist, so that she may pass as a well-born lady. The musical's 1956 Broadway production was a hit, setting what was then the record for the longest run of any major musical theatre production in history. It was followed by a hit London production, a popular film version, and numerous revivals. It has been called "the perfect musical".


Read more about MY FAIR LADY Broadway Revival Set for 2014; Ralph Fiennes as a 'Contender' for Henry Higgins? by broadwayworld.com

Record Producer Clive Davis Eyeing Anne Hathaway and Colin Firth for My Fair Lady Broadway Revival By Michael Gioia 20 Feb 2013 (PLAYBILL)

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Grammy Award-winning record producer Clive Davis, who plans to produce a Broadway revival of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's Tony-wining My Fair Lady, is eyeing Oscar nominee Anne Hathaway and Oscar winner Colin Firth for the show's leading roles, according to USA Today.

As previoulsy reported, Davis plans to bring the classic back to Broadway in 2014. He will produce the musical alongside Roger Berlind, Scott Landis and The Nederlander Organization.

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"I always wanted to produce a Broadway show, and I've never done it," Davis previously told the Los Angeles Times. "I'm hopeful we will prepare and finalize everything this year to bring My Fair Lady next year to Broadway with a stellar cast. I don't want to jinx myself, but we're in discussions with two magnificent performers and a wonderful director to do that."

According to Davis, Hathaway ("Les Misérables," "The Devil Wears Prada") and Firth ("The King's Speech"), who would play the respective roles of Eliza Doolittle and Professor Henry Higgins, were up for the same roles in a screen adaptation of "My Fair Lady," which fell through and made the rights available for a Broadway remounting.

READ MORE: http://www.playbill.com/news/article/175182-Record-Producer-Clive-Davis-Eyeing-Anne-Hathaway-and-Colin-Firth-for-My-Fair-Lady-Broadway-Revival

Colin Firth: Anne Hathaway to be Colin Firth's 'Fair Lady' on stage? Elysa Gardner, USA TODAY

Music mogul Clive Davis has gotten lots of attention for revealing his bisexuality in the new memoir The Soundtrack of My Life, out Tuesday. But for musical theater fans, it may be equally big news that Davis plans to stage a revival of the Lerner and Loewe classic My Fair Lady — with some big stars in mind to play the title character, Eliza Doolittle, and her self-appointed Svengali, Professor Henry Higgins.

Davis writes in Soundtrack that he is "about to realize another of my life's dreams: producing a Broadway musical," with theater veterans Roger Berlind, Scott Landis and the Nederlander Organization.

Chatting with USA TODAY on Monday, Davis elaborated on this dream project, noting that "our first choices" to play Eliza and Higgins were Anne Hathaway — a top Oscar contender this Sunday for her singing performance in the screen version of Les Misérables — and Colin Firth.

READ MORE: http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2013/02/19/clive-davis-eyes-stars-for-broadway-revival/1930977/

DAN STEVENS - DOWNTON ABBEY SERIES 2 EPISODE 4 REVIEW

Downton Abbey, ITV1, episode 4, review - THE TELEGRAPH

Serena Davies reviews the fourth episode of ITV1's period drama, Downton Abbey.


Michelle Dockery and Maggie Smith in episode 4 of Downton Abbey

By Serena Davies
10:20PM BST 09 Oct 2011

Well, Downton’s done it again. Just as I thought it was floundering in the inconsequential – who cares if Molesley wants to be a valet? Or Mrs Crawley is in a bit of a sulk? Or even, actually, if Jane-Asher doppelganger Ethel is pregnant by her soldier-beau? – one scene tore me all to shreds in this episode.

How does Julian Fellowes get away with wading around in corn a mile high and still bring tears to the eyes? The only programme I can remember having achieved this rare trick before was the hopelessly sentimental Eighties Canadian TV adaptation of Anne of Green Gables. But I was 15 when I last saw that.

The scene, of course, was the moment during the concert put on at Downton to cheer the hearts of its convalescent soldier residents when Lady Mary sang, “If you were the only girl in the world, and I were the only boy…”. No one can stay hard-hearted at the chorus of that tune, an anthem for both the First and Second World Wars and so, in a way, an injection of authenticity into the unreal world of this period soap opera. We can be far more confident Fellowes’s Edwardian characters would have known this song than we can be that they would have spoken any of the lines he’s given them.

And then Mary, mid song, saw Matthew Crawley slip in among the crowd at the back of the room. Matthew Crawley, whom she’d spent the last ten minutes of the episode thinking may have died in France, Matthew Crawley, whose appearance made her stop, frozen, as if she’d indeed seen a ghost.

Mary and Matthew are developing into one of the great love stories in popular culture. This in large part because Michelle Dockery and Dan Stevens are giving such marvellous performances that they are starting to obscure - with the honourable exception of Maggie Smith - the whole of the rest of Downton’s cast. Stevens we already knew was excellent from TV (The Line of Beauty; Sense and Sensibility) and theatre (Arcadia), Dockery had done a wonderful Eliza Doolittle in a stage Pygmalion but that was the only thing that had really got her noticed. What clever casting to have found these two.

SOURCE: THE TELEGRAPH