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20 October 2011
Last updated at 07:54 GMT

The play tells the story of how Peter Pan became the boy who would not grow up

A prequel to J M Barrie’s classic Peter Pan is to open on Broadway next spring.

Peter and the Starcatcher, based on Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson’s 2006 novel of the same name, tells the story of how Peter Pan became the boy who would not grow up.

The play, which ran earlier this year at the Off-Broadway New York Theater Workshop, features 12 actors who play some 50 characters.

Casting and its new theatre venue have yet to be announced.

Disney Theatrical Productions originally commissioned the play, which features a handful of songs but is not billed as a musical.

It was written by Tony nominee Rick Elice – who currently has two musicals on Broadway, The Addams Family and Jersey Boys – and is co-directed by Roger Rees and Alex Timbers.

“I couldn’t be happier that this production Rick, Roger and I have been developing for more than five years now is taking the final step to Broadway,” Timbers told Playbill.

The production received five Drama Desk nominations earlier this year, going on to win the award for outstanding music in a play.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/entertainment-arts-15374342

20 October 2011
Last updated at 03:12 GMT

Dr Shafer said Dr Murray’s delay in calling 911 had been “completely and utterly inexcusable”

Michael Jackson’s doctor made 17 flagrant violations when administering propofol to the star, an expert on the potent anaesthetic has told the court.

Dr Steven Shafer said the drug should never be used to treat insomnia and Dr Conrad Murray’s negligence was directly responsible for Jackson’s death.

The expert called Dr Murray “clueless” about the drug that contributed to the 50-year-old singer’s June 2009 death.

Dr Murray denies involuntary manslaughter of the star.

Dr Shafer, who helped write the guidance on every bottle of propofol, told the Los Angeles court that Dr Murray did not know how to respond when the star stopped breathing.

He said of Dr Murray’s delay in calling 911: “I almost don’t know what to say. That is so completely and utterly inexcusable.”

The Columbia University professor said propofol should never be taken as a sleeping aid.

“We are in pharmacological never-never land here, something that was done to Michael Jackson and no one else in history to my knowledge,” he told the jury.

The expert in anaesthesiology also said Dr Murray had acted like the pop star’s obedient “employee” and not his doctor, who should have refused the star’s requests for propofol.

Dr Conrad Murray (right) denies involuntary manslaughter of the pop star

“Saying ‘yes’ is not what doctors do,” said Dr Shafer. “A competent doctor would know you do not do this.”

Dr Shafer testified that Dr Murray should have taken minute-by-minute notes of Jackson’s condition while he was under the influence of propofol.

He said Dr Murray’s lack of record keeping had been a denial of Jackson’s rights.

Dr Shafer also criticised Dr Murray for talking on the phone in the hours before Jackson’s death.

The anaesthesiology expert said doctors should never multi-task while monitoring a sedated patient.

“A patient who is about to die does not look all that different from a patient who is OK,” he said.

Dr Shafer is expected to be the prosecution’s final witness, and his testimony will continue on Thursday.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-us-canada-15380271

19 October 2011
Last updated at 15:43 GMT

The video for SM was banned in some countries due to its sexual content

Rihanna has reached a settlement with celebrity photographer David LaChapelle after he claimed her SM video was “directly derived” from his pictures.

LaChapelle sued the singer earlier this year seeking $1m (£630,000) in damages, saying scenes from the controversial video plagiarised his own shoots.

A New York judge granted permission in July for the case to go to trial.

A publicist for LaChapelle confirmed the case had now been settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

“David is happy with the settlement,” Jaret Keller told the BBC.

LaChappelle said Rihanna had appropriated eight of his images in the video, including one where she is shown in profile against a blue background with a sweet on her tongue.

His case stated that Rihanna’s video copied the “composition, total concept, feel, tone, mood, theme, colours, props, settings, decors wardrobe and lighting” of his work.

“This is not personal, it’s strictly business,” the photographer said on filing the legal claim.

“Musicians commonly pay to sample music or use someone’s beats, and there should be no difference when sampling an artist’s visuals.”

A spokeswoman for Rihanna did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/entertainment-arts-15369397

19 October 2011
Last updated at 10:30 GMT

Radiohead released a special vinyl edition of their latest album on their website

Sales of vinyl albums have risen 40% in 2011, thanks to the likes of Radiohead, Adele and Beady Eye.

More than 240,000 albums have been sold so far this year, compared to the 234,000 purchased in all 52 weeks of 2010, the Official Charts Company said.

Radiohead’s King Of Limbs tops the best-sellers’ list, beating Adele’s 21 which is the year’s most popular album across all formats.

The peak year for vinyl sales was 1975, when 91.6 million albums were bought.

Records topping the charts that year included Elton John’s first greatest hits collection, Led Zeppelin’s Physical Grafitti and Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here.

In 2010, only 0.2% of all albums sold in the UK were on vinyl.

CDs formed the bulk of the total 119.9 million sales, with digital albums accounting for 21 million.

The Official Charts Company said this year is set to be the best for vinyl since 2005, when sales reached 351,000.

Radiohead’s position at the top of the vinyl chart is due in part to a limited edition “newspaper” edition of The King Of Limbs.

This came with two heavyweight 10-inch vinyl records, specially-created artwork and 625 postage stamp-sized prints.

The Oxford band, who recently revealed tour plans for 2012, have sold around 20,000 copies of their eighth album on vinyl.

They are joined in the Top 10 by Arctic Monkeys, PJ Harvey, Kate Bush and Nirvana – whose reissued Nevermind has seen healthy sales in the last month.

Six of the Top 10 were released by independent labels, with Domino and XL the most-represented record companies on the list.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/entertainment-arts-15366464

19 October 2011
Last updated at 18:43 GMT

Westlife will have a greatest hits album and farewell tour before they split next year

Westlife are to split “amicably” after 14 years, the band have announced.

The Irish pop group will finish with a farewell tour next year and said they were looking forward to “new ventures”.

Westlife – for many years managed by X Factor judge Louis Walsh – have had 14 UK number one hits over the course of their career.

The group said in a statement: “Over the years Westlife has become so much more to us than just a band. Westlife are a family.”

The band, whose number one singles have included Swear It Again and Flying Without Wings, has sold more than 44 million records around the world.

They survived the departure of founding member Bryan McFadden in 2004 to continue as a four-piece.

‘Amazing journey’

Remaining members Mark Feehily, Kian Egan, Shane Filan and Nicky Byrne are due to release a greatest hits album on 21 November.

In a statement on their website, the band thanked their fans “who have been with us on this amazing journey and are part of our family too”.

They said: “The decision is entirely amicable and after spending all of our adult life together so far, we want to have a well-earned break and look at new ventures.”

In 2001, the band were chosen to record the Comic Relief single, a cover of Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/entertainment-arts-15377996

19 October 2011
Last updated at 16:56 GMT

By Tim Masters
Entertainment and arts correspondent, BBC News

George Clooney plays presidential hopeful Mike Morris in The Ides of March

George Clooney, whose new film The Ides of March has its UK premiere later, has said he has no plans to enter politics.

However, the Hollywood star said he would continue to be involved on the sidelines.

Clooney, 50, admitted that getting involved in political issues sometimes made him “very unpopular”.

In The Ides of March, which he co-wrote and directed, he plays governor Mike Morris, a candidate running in a US presidential primary race.

“I grew up in a time when most people had a social and political conscience,” the actor told a London Film Festival press conference on Wednesday.

“Some of the biggest changes in our country’s history happened when I was growing up, so I was raised to participate and I will continue to do that.”

Yet he said he had no desire to run for political office. “I have a very comfortable existence,” he told reporters.

“I am able to dip my toe into issues involved in politics, like in Sudan or Darfur. Where I can have some involvement then I’m happy to do it, and I don’t have to compromise as a politician.”

The film industry, Clooney continued, did not have much influence over political change. “It usually reflects things,” he said.

Clooney’s co-stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Evan Rachel Wood are with him in London

“It takes us two years to catch up, to write a script and shoot a film. We usually hold a mirror up to it after it’s happened. We don’t really lead the way.”

The Ides of March also stars Ryan Gosling as Morris’s press spokesman and Philip Seymour Hoffman as his seasoned campaign manager.

The story sees Morris and his team become embroiled in sex scandal and dirty tricks as the campaign trail reaches a crucial stage.

Asked if Hollywood was as Machiavellian as the world of politics, Clooney said: “The business can be that way, there’s a certain cut-throat element.

“But there’s a certain generosity in most actors that I don’t see in politics.

“I’m sure you guys have all met a few actors you’d like to take their heads off, but most of them are pretty kind to one another,” he went on.

“Because you’re so lucky when you get to be in position where you get to be in a film. You’re very privileged and you understand that it’s not just your brilliance that got you there.

“You’re sitting on the shoulders of a lot of happy accidents along the way.”

The Ides of March is based on the play Farragut North by Beau Willimon, who co-wrote its screenplay.

The play premiered in New York in 2008, moving to Los Angeles the following year.

Clooney had planned to shoot the film version in 2008, but the production was put on hold following the election of President Obama.

Ryan Gosling also appears in the film, out in the UK on 28 October

As the actor and director puts it, “people were too optimistic for such a cynical film.”

The Ides of March is so-named because the presidential primary in the story takes place on 15 March – the day on which Julius Caesar was stabbed to death, as dramatised in Shakespeare’s play.

“We thought it was an interesting idea about a good friend and an enemy conspiring to take you out,” said Clooney.

“We weren’t really trying to tell anyone that this was Shakespeare, but it is about back-stabbing.”

The Ides of March has its British premiere in London on Wednesday and is released in UK cinemas on 28 October.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/entertainment-arts-15361279

19 October 2011
Last updated at 16:59 GMT

River Phoenix starred in Stand By Me and Mosquito Coast before his death

The film River Phoenix was working on when he died is to be finished and released, 18 years after his death, the director has announced.

George Sluizer told The Hollywood Reporter he hopes to release Dark Blood next year.

The filmmaker said he plans to ask Phoenix’s brother Joaquin to record the film’s voiceover because “the voices of both brothers are very much alike”.

Phoenix died of a drugs overdose in 1993, aged 23.

Just 11 days of filming on Dark Blood remained at the time.

The producers later attempted to sue his mother for $6 million (£3.8 million) saying he did not declare his drug use. The case later collapsed.

However Sluizer, who directed Spoorloos and The Vanishing, has stayed in touch with the Phoenix family in the intervening years.

He told The Hollywood Reporter he had kept the Dark Blood footage hidden all this time, fearing it would be destroyed.

It has now been re-edited and Sluzier believes that with a few adjustments, including the creation of a voice-over, he can complete the movie.

The story concerns a widower living on a nuclear testing site in the desert, who comes to the rescue of a couple of honeymooners when their car breaks down.

Child star

Alongside Johnny Depp, Christian Slater and Keanu Reeves, Phoenix was regarded as one of the leading young actors of his generation when he died outside the Viper Rooms in Los Angeles in 1993.

He was there with his brother Joaquin and girlfriend Mathis when he took a cocktail of drugs, suffering seizures outside the club.

River was the older brother of actors Rain, Joaquin and Summer Phoenix

His death certificate put the cause down to multiple drug intoxication.

His body was cremated and the ashes scattered over the family ranch in Florida.

The star had been encouraged to go into acting from a young age, and by the time he was 10 had roles in TV series including the short-lived Seven Brides For Seven Brothers and Celebrity.

Stand By Me, a coming-of-age fable based on a Stephen King story, proved to be his breakthrough and he followed it up with an acclaimed performance in the gritty Mosquito Coast, starring alongside Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren.

The young actor received an Oscar nomination in 1989 for his supporting role in Sidney Lumet’s Running On Empty – in which he played the eldest son of a couple of war protesters living on the run after bombing a napalm plant during the Vietnam War.

That film began his passage from child star to adult actor, a journey he completed with a daring portrayal of a rent boy in Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho.

Later films included Sneakers, Dogfight and The Thing Called Love. At the time of his death, he was also signed up to appear in Interview With The Vampire.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/entertainment-arts-15369725

18 October 2011
Last updated at 16:47 GMT

The tooth will be auctioned in November

One of John Lennon’s teeth is expected to make £10,000 when it is auctioned next month.

The tooth was given to the former Beatles’ house keeper Dot Jarlett when she worked for him at Kenwood mansion in Surrey in the late 1960s.

He told her to give it her daughter “as a souvenir” after he had pulled it out in the kitchen of the Weybridge property.

The tooth will be auctioned in Stockport on 5 November.

Dot’s son Barry Jarlett said: “He was in the kitchen and he had this tooth which he had wrapped in a piece of paper.

“He said: ‘Dot will you dispose of this’ and then he said: ‘Or, as your daughter’s a Beatles fan, you can give to her as a souvenir’.

“It is something that we felt was very personal and my mum actually gave it to my sister who has kept it safe.”

It comes with an affidavit signed by Mrs Jarlett who has previously sold items including the jacket worn by John Lennon on the Rubber Soul album.

“He was very generous to my mother,” Mr Jarlett said.

“He treated her like family because he didn’t really have a very big family and he really looked after my mum. He used to call her Aunty Dot.”

Karen Fairweather, from Omega Auctions, said: “This is the most wonderful and weird item that we have ever had for sale.

“It is a truly unique item and it is really difficult to put a value on it.

“We are expecting it to achieve at least £10,000 but it is not unknown for these items as rare as this to reach six figures.”

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/uk-england-merseyside-15357068

18 October 2011
Last updated at 13:56 GMT

Roberto joined the NYO when he was 13

A schoolboy from Birmingham will become one of the youngest musicians to lead the National Youth Orchestra (NYO) when he takes on the role in 2012.

Violinist Roberto Ruisi, 15, started playing with the prestigious youth orchestra when he was 13.

The King Edward’s School pupil said he was “overwhelmed” when he heard that he had been chosen to lead the orchestra made up of about 165 musicians.

John Claughton, from the school, said it was an “extraordinary achievement”.

The NYO, which was founded in 1948, is made up of musicians aged between 13 and 19 from across Great Britain.

Roberto said: “It was an honour and a thrill to be chosen as a principal last year, and we play with so many other great players, so to be the leader is beyond anything I could have expected.”

‘Amazing player’

The orchestra’s communications manager, James Murphy, said: “We’ve known Robbie for a couple of years and he’s a magnificent musician and a great personality.

“He’s one of the youngest people to be leader of the orchestra.”

Mr Claughton, Chief Master at King Edward’s School, described it as an “extraordinary achievement”.

He said Roberto was an “amazing player” and the news meant a lot to everybody in the school.

“We’re thrilled, music is such an important part of the school’s life and we celebrate it a great deal,” Mr Claughton added.

Roberto will take up his new role in December.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-15347528

The rapper has had two UK number ones with Crank That and Soulja Girl

Rapper Soulja Boy has been arrested on drug and weapons charges after his car was pulled over in the US.

A police spokeswoman said the 21-year-old and four crew members were stopped near Georgia’s state line with Alabama.

Officers say they found marijuana, pistols and cash inside the car after a “routine traffic stop”.

Soulja Boy was forced to apologise last month to the US military and their families after questioning the role of the army and the FBI in a video.

Police spokeswoman Dana Rampy said the rapper, three bodyguards and a driver were each arrested on charges of possession of marijuana, possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and possession of a firearm.

A puppy found in the car was turned over to relatives of the driver.

Soulja Boy, whose real name is DeAndre Cortez Way, gained fame online with the dance he created for the track Crank That.

That song and his next single Soulja Girl both went to number one in the UK singles chart.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/newsbeat/15364091