UK Roundup - Kevin Spacey, Starlight Express, Barbara Cook and more..

Most actors relish in the fact Christmas brings them guaranteed work - the English theatre scene thrives during the festive period. However, for one actor, that won't be the case - Christmas will be his well earned break. That's because the actor is Kevin Spacey, and this week he unveiled his inaugural season plans as artistic director of the Old Vic Theatre Company. The company are producing four plays and also the musical Billy Elliot, though this is likely to go into the West End and not the Waterloo venue.

It was expected that Spacey would unveil a major casting coup in the form of Ian McKellen, who will play pantomime dame Widow Twankey in a new version of Aladdin. The Lord of the Rings actor will no doubt make the show a massive sell out, thanks to the success of the films among young audiences. The actor last took to the London stage in a production of Dance of Death - which he earlier played on Broadway. Sean Mathias, director of Dance of Death, will also direct Aladdin, reuniting the pair.

But what about Mr Spacey himself? He has cast himself in two plays, one of which is The Philadelphia Story, likely to attract a major Hollywood star in the female lead, and also National Anthems, the British premiere of Dennis McIntyre's play which Spacey starred in 15 years ago. Another play he has previously outed is Cloaca, by Dutch writer Maria Goos. He will now direct it as the first play of the season, starring Hugh Bonneville and Stephen Tompkinson.

As I predicted in March, a new production of Starlight Express will take to the road later this year, adopting the American US tour system of the 3D race sequences. Visiting larger venues for month long stints, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, which ran in the West End for 18 years, is a rock-epic about train racing. The tour features new lyrics by Full Monty writer David Yazbek.

I was amused to see this morning that a new advertising campaign for musical Tonight's the Night, written by Ben Elton with songs by Rod Stewart, has taken a new slant on its marketing. It now refers to the show, which is playing at the Victoria Palace, as 'The Rod Stewart Musical' and puts the actual title in smaller print below. With the news this week that Dolly Parton is writing a musical, we have to ask - why bother even giving them names? Mamma Mia, We Will Rock You, All Shook Up and Our House are all named after the band's hit songs - so why not just, from now on, call them The (Insert Name) Musical? It's the only reason the fans go to them..

In other news, Oleanna with Julia Stiles has opened with positive reviews, certainly unlike the other Mamet outing last year with Matthew Perry, and Barbara Cook will bring Broadway to Britain on May 11^th for three weeks with her one-woman show Barbara Cook's Broadway. It just played an engagement at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre.