I'm sure it won't.

 

He 's Rhett Butler!

 

I'm sure no artist, no matter how big a stroppy diva ( which Darius is far from being),would let a grotty dressing room stop him doing that part.

 

I like the shots of Darius in the background just being one of the company.

 

The way he greeted the stage doorman was so Darius. All that was missing was the bear hug.

Breaking news of a 72 hour strike on the underground from April 6th, according to Reuters.

Thanks Bramley. It doesn't affect me at present but it may later, becausethese things can go on for months, depending on how the union works it.

 

I remember being part of a rolling strike which targetted certain areas and was supported by a levy on all the other members, which recompensed those who were doing the striking. Financially that strike could have gone on for a very long time without great loss to any union member. That's why the government caved in.

 

Nothing will keep me away from Darius, even if I have to drive all the way to London alone and walk miles to get to the theatre..

Edited March 28, 200817 yr by Baytree

At least they've called of the rail actions - which I'm delighted about. The train before mine broke down in the station last night and no one knew what was happening - it was a farce. As if to make it better, they kept announcing that the rail strike had been suspended. It did make it better - I hope they don't decide to do it after the tube strike ends now.

One threat ends just as another starts - how lovely!

 

There are always plenty of taxis at the theatres at the end of the shows anyway and the buses run quite late into thenight, don't they? It will be more inconvenient but not impossible.

 

Edited March 28, 200817 yr by Baytree

Not always. When I took Mum to the Cambridge, we couldn't get one, ending up walking half way to Waterloo - not easy for Mum. I'm working out staging posts for when I take her to 'Gone With The Wind'. She just couldn't misss this one.

Just to say, therer are posters all over the place for 'gone With The Wind' now - none of which have an actors name on. It's listed in a lot of papers but, again, no names apart from Trevor's.

Still think thats wrong - no names I mean.

I'm hioping to see his name in lights. Aren't wer all?

From The TimesMarch 29, 2008

 

Jill Paice plays Scarlett O'Hara on West End stage

Jill Paice is playing Scarlett in Gone with the Wind, the most iconic female role of the 20th century

Louise Cohen

Did the 20th century produce any richer female character than Scarlett O'Hara, the determined, ruthless heroine of Gone With the Wind?

 

Immortalised by Vivien Leigh in the 1939 film of Margaret Mitchell's mammoth novel, Scarlett exerted such a pull that Leigh had to fight her way past Lucille Ball, Bette Davis, Carole Lombard and Kath-arine Hepburn to get the role.

 

Leigh's Oscar-winning turn must cast a long shadow over any actress who wants to take on the part. Surely, anyone considering playing Scarlett on stage must be terrified?

 

“Absolutely,” says Jill Paice with a smile. “It is completely intimidating. But also thrilling.”

 

Paice, 28, is the unknown Ohio actress picked by the director Trevor Nunn to step into Scarlett's shiny shoes in a new musical adaptation for the London stage. She does not conform to the popular image of Scarlett. Slim, with delicate, cat-like features and a cute, tufty haircut, she is calm, focused and flawlessly polite.

 

“I'm not like Scarlett,” she admits. “She has incredible strength, how she gets herself and her family through the civil war. I have always admired her, and I have always tried to use something from the film in every show I've ever done, a reaction, or a flick of the eye, or just the way she holds herself - because I love Vivien Leigh and I think there's nothing wrong with learning and borrowing from fellow actors.”

 

Still, the question remains, how did she get the job? Was there some Scarlett-like wheeling and dealing going on behind the scenes? Disappointingly, it appears not.

 

“I've been unnaturally obsessed with Gone With the Wind since I first saw the film as a child,” Paice explains. “I would save my allowance to buy a vintage copy of the book or a Scarlett doll, and I would dress up every Hallowe'en as her. My room was decorated with Gone With the Wind. I was just in love - with the story, with the time period ...”

 

She brought her obsession to London, and when appearing in Nunn's production of The Woman in White in 2004, she found herself making dinnertable smalltalk with the director. When she asked what he was working on and he replied that he was starting a workshop for the Gone With the Wind musical, she says that she fell out of her chair. Two weeks later, Nunn phoned to ask her to play Scarlett in his workshop.

 

For the next few years, Paice would call Nunn to see if the musical had finally got off the ground. “I just kept waiting, expecting to be dropped from the production. I figured they would need - would want - to bring in a movie star, which I would have completely understood. It's a business.”

 

A business with unfortunate timing: when the part was offered to her, she had to be released from a Broadway contract for the musical Curtains on Broadway, to fly to London for February rehearsals.

 

With opening night moving ever closer, the cast are rehearsing six days a week. John Napier's set will transform the New London Theatre into 1860s Atlanta with walkways for the actors around the circle, exits through the stalls and scenery stretching right around the audience. Margaret Martin has written the book, lyrics and the music, which Paice says combine gospel, folk and Irish melodies for a home-spun, down-South feel. “There are some great numbers. Although Scarlett actually ends up doing a lot more talking.”

 

Darius Danesh (of Pop Idol fame) is Scarlett's turbulent love interest Rhett Butler. Paice's opinion of her co-star is the expected one. “Darius is lovely!” she grins. “I didn't know anything about him, or where he came from and I still don't; I just know him as this guy who is very tall, and he turned up to rehearsal and is genuine and so enthusiastic and so humble. We've been able to talk and discover the relationship between Rhett and Scarlett.”

 

At present, the stage affair is the only one in Paice's life, and the one subject around which she becomes flustered. “It's difficult - I always say I have a love affair with my career. If you're dating someone in Wall Street they're working ten to six and you have to work at night, so when do you see each other? It's easier to date theatre people because they understand. I do hope to get married and have kids eventually,” she says, anxiously ruffling her hair. “Who knows, maybe I'll meet some fabulous young man here!”

 

Being away from her New York home has never been much of a hardship for Paice. Community theatre was a way for her to meet people when her parents finally settled in Ohio, after spending time in Crete, mainland Greece and Dakota where Paice, “an air force brat”, was born. “I always think my childhood trained me for being an actor because you have to be willing to put everything down and move if you want to keep working.”

 

But Paice's parents weren't thrilled about her career choice. “My mom wanted me to be a pharmacist, but it was very clear to me from a young age that I wanted to be in theatre, and I was going to be OK.”

 

She was right. She attended Baldwin Wallace College in Ohio - “a wonderful, safe place to learn, we were never encouraged to lose weight or colour our hair” - and found an agent through a showcase in her final year. She moved to New York three days after graduation, and within two months was booked in the ensemble for the US tour of Les Misérables. She's been intermittently on Broadway and the West End ever since.

 

“I've been lucky that I could slot right into this world. But up until now, I've been an ingénue, who just gets a little kiss right at the end,” she laughs. “But, as Trevor [Nunn] said to me the other day, ?Scarlett O'Hara is kissed within an inch of her life in the first act!'”

 

So now that she has the chance, will audiences give a damn for Jill Paice's Scarlett? “Who knows?” she shrugs. “I might fail dismally. But I have loved Vivien Leigh for so many years that I really hope to sort of channel her, and bring her to the stage with me. I think you do end up loving Scarlett.” We'll just have to see

 

Gone with the Wind, New London Theatre, Drury Lane, London WC2 (www.gwtwthemusical.com 0870 8900141), from Sat

 

Thanks.

 

I'm not sure I like this - "Paice's opinion of her co-star is the expected one."

 

To me, it's like saying..... this is what she says about her co-star but you know that's not what she really thinks.

yes, I thought that - the usual dig, how could she actually think Darius is lovely..

 

It's clear from the relaxed way Jill is around Darius in the photos and the videos that they get on well.

I was about to write what you two have already said, same old - dig again.

But they do do it in a more subtle way in the broadsheets.

I read it as an 'I don't want to praise Darius' bit from them. But they were right - what else could anyone say first about Darius other than he IS lovely. He's talented as wel,l but it's his lovely ways you meet first.

Im counting down now 28 more sleeps :yahoo:

Less than a week. My 13 yr old can't wait. Me, not excited at all.

I read it as an 'I don't want to praise Darius' bit from them. But they were right - what else could anyone say first about Darius other than he IS lovely. He's talented as wel,l but it's his lovely ways you meet first.

 

I just take the talented bit for granted.

 

Lovely isn't really adequate but it goes some way to sum up much about Darius, his manners, his kindness, his intelligence and the fact that he is so grounded and I suppose I must also mention his looks..

I take photos of him but, to me, his looks are the least of his assets.