Ask Stephen: the virtual booktour

Only Stephen Fry could get away with this, yet he may be starting a trend: launching a book via Twitter, cinema, webcasts and, later, YouTube, no doubt. And The Fry Chronicles is available in five formats simultaneously: book, eBook, iBook, audiobook and iPhone app.

Mr Fry is launching the tome by appearing at the various UK theatres to do augmented book readings on successive evenings: the add-on part comes from interaction with audiences in the venue and at 60 cinemas with some of his 1.8 million Twitter followers.

Real-time Q and A, and the Twittersphere will send #recommendation tags to their exponential readers. Already the Chronicles has toppled Tony Blair's Journey from the top of Amazon's UK book chart. Very smart.

All this commercial success without stepping into a television or radio studio, chatting to features journalists (although Mr Fry is doing his bit the old-fashioned way, too), going 'on the road' past the Oxford-Cambridge-London triangle, or getting your hair wet.

Where Stephen leads, other writers will follow, especially if they have a Twitter fan base.


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Billy Millionaire: the Olympic opener

London 2012 has just taken another decision. Danny Boyle and Stephen Daldry have been handed the reins of creation for the Olympics' opening ceremony.

Both directors have form. Danny Boyle's biggest success was the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire; Stephen Daldry was the creative force behind Billy Elliot.

So what can we expect? Something new, or a hybrid of previous projects: Indian boy makes good in his quest to be a Bollywood dancer?

Whatever results will be very different and presumably less expensive than the opening to the Beijing 2008 Olympics.


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Kylie - the musical

Ever since Mamma mia! stormed the West End (and then Hollywood) showcasing Abba's sizable output within a silly yet heartwarming script, this particular route to El Dorado has been well mined: witness We will rock you [Queen]; Jersey boys [Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons]; All the fun of the fair [David Essex], to name but a few shows treading the boards at the moment.

The latest pop icon off the blocks is Kylie Minogue, but which of her hits will be the title of the probable forthcoming show?

• Step back in time (a invitation to be nostalgic); 
• On a night like this (on a stage like that);
• Come into my world (which punter could resist);
• Can't get you out of my head (on the basis of it being a worldwide smash)

Who knows? But the title probably won't be Shocked (too generic); Where is the feeling (too negative); Chocolate (too distracting); Slow (too soporific); or Kids (too much information).

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A very British divorce

Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes, less than the sum of their parts, after all.

She says tomarto and he says tomatoe. She likes to talk and he likes cricket highlights on Sky TV.

Both are smart, talented and in demand, often at different map reference coordinates. And there's the rub ...

The first thing journalists knew for sure about their marriage breakdown was their own press statement. The tabloid media had no scent of the news, but made up ground in spades on the following days.

But the whole business, though sad, was dignified and restrained.


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Centre-stage fold

There's news in the press that the Royal Opera House wants to stage a musical based on the life and times of Anna Nicole Smith. Possible titles might be:

• Play it again, Hugh;
• Bunny in the money;
• Sex, Drugs and Viagra;
• Show me the dough.

All of which will fuel speculation about the next 'starlet' off the cab rank for such treatment and expansion of the brand. Agents acting for the likes of Paris Hilton, Kerry Katona and Katie Price will be watching the space with interest.

But Gypsy Rose Lee got there years ago, although a 21st-century remake would be unlikely to be so demure.

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Lord Never Diets: notes on a premiere

Love Never Dies is a bit too vague a title for me: it sounds like the name of the next Bond movie.

So how did the press react to the Phantom sequel musical? With the usual mix of savage apathy, gleeful spite and feigned disappointment, especially from online critics. But it it any good?

We'll only know once the hacks have gone home and the tourists start booking. In other words, once the paint has finally dried.

At least it's been a classic case of measuring the column inches rather than reading them. Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber will be delighted with the turn out.

Casting couched

Colin Firth has bemoaned the fact that openly gay actors don't get a proper look in. Straight thesps get to play central gay characters (e.g. A Single Man, Capote, Philadelphia, The Birdcage), but it's never the other way around.

Where actors have had successful careers in the theatre, film roles are however offered (e.g. Ian McKellern, Anthony Sher, Alan Cumming, Nathan Lane). Female actors tend to describe themselves as bi-sexual, perhaps as defence against the phone never ringing again (e.g. Drew Barrymore, Megan Fox, Angelina Jolie).

But casting a gay man as a heterosexual romantic lead would be tricky: not because of homophobia, rather movie economics. Not enough women would suspend their disbelief to imagine themselves in the arms of an openly gay actor.

In earlier times, before the tabloid press was quite so intrusive, gay stars could thrive. The likes of Rock Hudson, Montgomery Clift, Dirk Bogarde, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich all benefited from a certain media deference to the stars.

The death of Rock Hudson from AIDS in 1985 marked a watershed. His career was reassessed in the rear-view mirror, and all those films with Doris Day etc. took on a different, more worldly complexion.

Somehow, hard though it is, it seems to be easier to be accepted as having a homosexual lifestyle as a singer, comedian or talk-show host (e.g. k d lang, Tracy Chapman, Rosie O'Donnell, Rhona Cameron, Sandi Toksvig, Ellen de Generes).

Going full circle, will straight actors give up gay roles without a fight, especially when Oscar nominations often seem up for grabs for such roles.

Zigga zig aargh: Spiceworld reborn

I'm suddenly feeling ancient. The music of the Spice Girls, if not the members of the band, is being resurrected for the stage as a Mamma Mia-style musical: Viva Forever, indeed. The group that will never say goodbye.

The original Spice Girl fans are now of at least college age and perhaps feeling nostalgic for their first obsession with Girl Power. The demographic could be huge, especially if the storyline is strong enough.

With Simon Fuller's participation, the show will not want for marketing nous, commercial merchandise exploitation and cross-platform promotion. Mr Fuller was the Spice Girl's manager and is an executive with his mitts all over the Idol series that Simon Cowell fronted until recently.

Perhaps the Spice Girl musical is a punt at a post-Idol world if The X Factor replaces American Idol in the hearts and minds of the US viewing public.

The People's Will-i-am

Happy 200th birthday, William Gladstone. Apparently the four-times prime minister read over 20,000 books in his lifetime and wrote copiously: a 19th-century polymath.

Flicking over to news from Amazon.com, which has apparently sold something like 500,000 units of the Kinder 2 since its launch. For the first time in history, more e-books were sold in a day than traditional paper-based books: on Christmas Day 2009. A rubicon has been crossed.

And in another corner of the jungle, Jerry Mitchell says that theatre directors watch DVDs of films for their inspiration rather than reading books, or even synopses of books. The result? Loads of new musicals are now adaptations of movies, the latest examples being Billy Elliot, Legally Blonde and Hairspray. Maybe short stories, poems, children's picture books and magazine articles might fit into musical creatives' mind-space for future inspiration?

Our culture is eating itself at warp speed as creative people are too time-poor and/or lazy to seek out fantastic yet unhyped books to adapt or, whisper it, to create something fabulous from scratch (Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber being the exception that proves the rule).

The upside is that any credible author with a great story that gets made into a successful film may be sitting in the first-class carriage of a gravy train heading towards extended shelf-life as a long-running musical.

William Gladstone's legacy as a representative of Victorian culture is in danger of turning into a derivative rap by the Black-Eyed Peas: pop culture for the Stepford generation The great man would be glad he didn't live to see the day.

Do the math, not the polymath: natch.