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Jim Carter, who famously played Carson the master butler on Downton Abbey, clearly was taken by the leading artist giving a terrifically moving performance as Dolly Gallagher Levi upon the London Palladium stage. “That’s my wife,” he declared during the interval.

Indeed it was. Imelda Staunton was creating a gold-standard portrait of the meddlesome fixer at the heart of the landmark musical Hello, Dolly! created by Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart from Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker.

“It’s a brilliant production,” Carter told me.

A tearful Jim Carter at the Palladium. Photo by Baz Bamigboye/Deadline.

“The problem is,” he continued, ”I can’t see anyone else on stage. I can only look at her. I’m sitting there going, ‘Wow!’”

Totally understandable, because the other 2,200 members of the audience were falling in love with her as well.

Imelda Staunton (center) and the ‘Hello, Dolly!’ company at the...

Exclusive: Imelda Staunton, swathed in glamorous red taffeta, descends a staircase on the London Palladium stage to lead a line of eager waiters in a chorus of “one of our favorite songs from way back when” from Hello, Dolly!

”Let’s reset,” a production assistant’s voice suddenly booms over the pubic address system.

We’re at a rehearsal run-through of a brand-spanking-new revival of the classic Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart musical adapted from Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker, starring an outstanding Staunton as Mrs. Dolly Gallagher Levi, a widow who over the course of just one day emerges from grief to rediscover life again.

The show started previews last Saturday where it was rapturously received, but the creative team knows there’s still work to do before official opening night July 18.

Imelda Staunton received a rapturous standing ovation at the first preview of ‘Hello, Dolly!’ At the London Palladium (...

Cameron Mackintosh, the London theatre owner and impresario, nixed the idea of having a host introduce artists performing at Tuesday’s one-night-only Old Friends tribute show honoring the legacy of musical theatre genius Stephen Sondheim, who died in November at age 91.

“All you need are Steve’s words and music, and our cast. They speak, or rather sing, for themselves,“ Mackintosh explained to Deadline before the star-studded event began at London’s Stephen Sondheim Theatre.

Worked like a treat. Thirty minutes saved, because Old Friends wasn’t lumbered with a host.

In any case, no one needed to introduce actress Julia McKenzie when she walked onto the stage, for it was she who, with Mackintosh producing, was part of an ensemble that super-spread Sondheim in the West End over four decades ago with a revue entitled Side By Side by Sondheim.

She’s one of the composer and lyricist’s foremost interpreters.

All eyes were on Judi Dench.

The legendary actress was seated stage right, performing one of Stephen Sondheim’s greatest hits. The sound of her voice, accompanied by a 25-piece orchestra led by Alfonso Casado Trigo, held a hushed audience in awe.

There was spontaneous applause. The great dame was led off stage. She reappeared moments later to perform the number again.

“Goosebumps,” said Cameron Mackintosh, echoing the thoughts of those lucky enough to be gathered in the stalls of London’s Stephen Sondheim Theatre for several hours Monday, for a long day and night of technical technical rehearsal for Tuesday night’s celebration of Sondheim, a giant of theatre, who died last November at age 91.

Tuesday’s one-night-only show is called Old Friends, named after a number in the composer’s 1981 musical comedy Merrily We Roll Along. Mackintosh has been putting Old Friends together with Matthew Bourne and Maria Friedman staging,...

Hands up who’s been singing ‘Goldfish-ohs nibbling at my toes’ for the last 32 years.

Not continuously. You’d be arrested. But on every occasion you’ve sung the Red Dwarf theme song in the past three decades – over the top of an episode’s opening credits, say, or alone, in the bath, you’ve sung that as the seventh line instead of the real lyric which is ‘Goldfish shoals’.

Don’t feel bad about it. Probably, when you first heard the song at age eight, you didn’t know the word ‘shoal’, but you did, thanks to global consumerism and the virulence of 1980s America’s pop cultural hegemony, know what Cheerios were, so your brain did the rest. It’s not worth beating yourself up over. We’re all just doing the best we can.

The point is, according to Red Dwarf composer Howard Goodall, who also came...

Fox is developing an event series about the bombings that took place at the 2013 Boston Marathon.

Rod Lurie will serve as writer, director, and executive producer of the untitled project, based on the book Long Mile Home: Boston Under Attack, the City’s Courageous Recovery, and the Epic Hunt for Justice by Boston Globe reporters Scott Helman and Jenna Russell.

The four-hour drama “follows the heartbreak, terror, and triumph on Boston’s tragic Marathon day and the week that followed, told through the eyes of various Bostonians who would not let their city’s fighting spirit die,” according to its official logline.

Fox is working on a miniseries based on the events of the Boston Marathon bombing, with Rod Lurie (Straw Dogs, Commander in Chief) onboard to write and direct. According to Deadline, the "event series" will be based on the book Long Mile Home, which follows five central people — two victims of the bombing, a police officer, a trauma surgeon, and the marathon's director. (The book, by Boston Globe reporters Scott Helman and Jenna Russell, came out a few weeks ago.) If the phrase "Boston Strong" becomes part of the miniseries' marketing campaign, we all have to move to the forest and lead more deliberate lives.

Exclusive: Rod Lurie has signed on to write and direct an event series for Fox about the Boston Marathon bombing. The untitled project, which is in development, is based on the best-selling book Long Mile Home, by Boston Globe reporters Scott Helman and Jenna Russell, members of the paper’s team that won a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting on the bombing. The book, a la The Bridge Of San Luis Rey, focuses on the real-life stories of five people whose lives are changed forever in two deafening blasts at the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon. It follows the heartbreak, terror and triumph on Boston’s tragic Marathon day and the week that followed. Basil Iwanyk, producer of We Are Marshall and executive producer of The Expendables franchise, will produce through his Thunder Road production company. He and Kent Kubena, who’s filming Gods Of Egypt, will shepherd the project for Thunder Road.

Better Call Saul

Michael McKean ("This is Spinal Tap," "Clue") has signed on for a key role in AMC's "Breaking Bad" spin-off series "Better Call Saul". McKean plays a gifted lawyer named Dr. Thurber who is hampered by a strange affliction.

The series the exploits of shady lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) before he met Walter White (Bryan Cranston). The show is slated to premiere in November. [Source: EW]

Long Mile Home

Fox is developing an event series about the 2013 Boston Marathon tragedy based on Scott Helman and Jenna Russell's book "Long Mile Home".

Rod Lurie ("The Contender") will write, direct and executive produce the drama which will follow the events of that tragic Marathon day, and the week that followed, through the eyes of various Bostonians. [Source: The Live Feed]

Project Greenlight

After more than a decade off the air, HBO is set to revive Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's reality series "Project Greenlight...

Fox is developing an event series about the 2013 Boston Marathon tragedy. Based on Long Mile Home: Boston Under Attack, the City's Courageous Recovery and the Epic Hunt for Justice, by Boston Globe reporters Scott Helman and Jenna Russell, the project will be written, directed and executive produced by Rod Lurie. The project will follow the heartbreak, terror and triumph on Boston's tragic marathon day and the week that followed, told through the eyes of various Bostonians, according to the official logline. Basil Iwanyk (We Are Marshall, The Expendables) and Kent Kubena of Thunder Road Pictures will also executive produce

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Let's see what the critics had to say...Urinetown, the musical, runs at The St James Theatre until 3 May 2014, starring Marc Elliott EastEndersThe History BoysTape as Mr. McQueen, Richard Fleeshman GhostLegally BlondeCoronation Street as Bobby Strong, Simon Paisley Day SherlockMusketeersTimon Of Athens as Caldwell B. Cladwell, Jenna Russell Merrily We Roll AlongSunday In The Park With GeorgeGuys And Dolls as Penelope Pennywise, Jonathan Slinger HamletThe TempestYes, Prime Minister as Officer Lockstock and is directed by Jamie Lloyd The Commitments, Macbeth, The Hothouse, The Pride at the St James Theatre.

One of the reliefs of moviegoing is that you only have a one in a million chance of being in a theater with Madonna. But another is that if you’re a rabid stage fan and happen to constantly miss all the great stuff being produced in the U.K., Fathom Events is giving viewers a chance to see some of their most acclaimed works in a comfy movie house for only a fraction of the price, and the West End’s celebrated revival of the 1981 Stephen Sondheim/George Furth musical Merrily We Roll Along will be rollin’ along to about 460 U.

The cast for Urinetown The Musical includes Katie Bernstein Little Becky Two ShoesMrs Millennium, Cory English Old Man StrongHot Blades Harry, Richard Fleeshman Bobby Strong, Madeleine Harland Soupy SueCladwell's Secretary, Rosanna Hyland Hope Cladwell, Julie Jupp Old WomanJosephine Strong, Mark Meadows Senator Fipp, Joel Montague Male Swing 1, Jo Napthine Female Swing 2, Jenna Russell Penelope Pennywise, Matthew Seadon-Young Robbie The StockfishUGC Executive 1 and Jonathan Slinger Officer Lockstock.

Stage actors – with minimal scope for makeup or prosthetics between scenes – tend to find it easier to age down than up

There are various ways of measuring a play: the number of characters or scenes, the presence or absence of an interval, and the average length of speeches. But Di and Viv and Rose – the Amelia Bullmore tragi-comedy currently having a second, sold-out run at the Hampstead theatre in London – suggests a new statistic: story years.

In 120 minutes of action, Bullmore follows three college friends across almost three decades (1983-2010), which places the play just ahead of Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along (which covers 23 years, 1957-80, in the Maria Friedman production that is deservedly about to transfer from the Menier Chocolate Factory to London's West End). These shows travel through history so rapidly that the Simon Stephens play Port, which recently opened at the National, feels almost laggardly...

Michael Xavier, Janie Dee, Claire Moore, Hayley Gallivan, Maria Friedman, Danielle Hope, Alison Jiear, Haydn Gwynne, Sally Anne Triplett, David Bedella, Tam Mutu, Paul Kaye, Stuart Matthew Price, Lucy May Barker, James Bourne, Madalena Alberto and Jenna Russell are now confirmed as the full line up of artists for Mercury Musical Developments 20th Anniversary Gala on Sunday 14 October 2012 at the Novello Theatre.

The cast of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Into The Woods includes: Helen Dallimore(Cinderella), Beverly Rudd (Little Red Riding Hood), Simon Thomas (Rapunzel's Prince), Michael Xavier (Wolf and Cinderella's Prince) Hannah Waddingham (The Witch), Jenna Russell (Baker's Wife), Marc Antolin (Swing), Valda Aviks (Granny), Billy Boyle (Mysterious Man), Gaye Brown (Cinderella's Stepmother), Sophie Caton (Swing), Alice Fearn (Rapunzel), Mark Goldthorp (Steward), Amy Griffiths (Lucinda), Mark Hadfield (Baker), Amy Ellen Richardson (Florinda), Ben Stott (Jack), andGemma Wardle (Cinderella's Mother).

Tony Award winner Laura Benanti is set to replace British stars Daniel Evans and Jenna Russell in an upcoming "Spotlight" concert series at the Kennedy Center. Benanti will take over the concert, which is set to be a part of the "Barbara Cook's Spotlight" concert series, featuring Broadway stars and curated by Barbara Cook.

Portraying compelling characters in Broadway theater, television, and film has made Tony Award-winning actress Laura Benanti one to watch. She hit Broadway by storm starring opposite Patti LuPone in Gypsy. Playing Louise, Benanti received critical acclaim for her performance--the New York Times called her "delicious in the title role"--and became the first actress in that role on Broadway to win the Tony for "Best Featured Actress in a Musical." She also earned Tony nominations for her roles in Swing! and the revival of Into the Woods opposite Vanessa Williams.

Her Broadway credits include Gypsy (for...

LONDON -- In a year when the West End was brimming with song and dance, the Menier Chocolate Factory's revival of Stephen Sondheim's "Sunday in the Park With George" was named outstanding musical production at the Laurence Olivier Awards on Sunday.

The show, which transferred last year from the Menier's small stage for a hit run at Wyndham's Theater, won four other Olivier Awards -- the British equivalent of Broadway's Tony Awards -- with Daniel Evans named best actor in a musical and Jenna Russell best actress in a musical.

First produced on Broadway in 1984, "Sunday in the Park", with book by James Lapine, melds music to the paintings of George Seurrat. It won the Pulitzer Prize and was a multiple Tony Award winner. The new production, directed by Sam Buntrock, also won Oliviers for set design and lighting design.

The Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Arthur Miller's 1953 drama "The Crucible" was named best revival with Dominic Cooke winning as best director. "Caroline, or Change", with book and lyrics by Tony Kushner and music by Jeanine Tesori, won the prize for best new musical. The show about race and human rights, which had a summer run on Broadway in 2004, was directed by Tony Award winner George C.