Stage or screen?
Trash made one of its infrequent visits to the theatre last week as a panellist for NT Live, the National Theatre's whizz idea of transmitting live stage performances into cinemas around the world. The play in question was Travelling Light, written by Nicholas Wright and directed by the NT's artistic director, Nicholas Hytner, both of whom joined me on the panel, hosted by Emma Freud. So while we and the audience at the Lyttelton watched a play starring Antony Sher, about the invention of silent film in a Jewish shtetl as recounted in flashback by a Hollywood mogul, audiences around the world watched too via a live broadcast.
"Was the character based on any real-life Hollywood mogul?" I asked Wright. I couldn't tell if he was joking when he suggested there might be echoes of Harvey Weinstein. I pointed out that Weinstein's forcefulness had led to The Artist being so prominent at the moment and thus fuelling an appetite for all things about silent film. "But these men who become film moguls, there's a certain sort of genius about them that makes for marvellous theatre," he said.
Incidentally, although Hytner did turn his stage hit The History Boys into a film, he feels it's unlikely with Travelling Light or his current – bigger – hit, One Man, Two Guvnors. "With the technology of NT Live being able to beam into cinemas, there really is no need," he told me. As if by illustration, I can reveal that the film of Danny Boyle's NT stage production of Frankenstein, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, will be back in cinemas in the summer.
Watts it all about
The furore over Meryl Streep's performance as Maggie Thatcher is likely to be nothing compared with what will greet Naomi Watts's portrayal of Diana, Princess of Wales. Watts, an excellent actor but not one who has yet earned the "royal" status accorded Helen Mirren or Streep, will play Diana in Caught in Flight, a film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, the German director who made Downfall.
Hirschbiegel attracted plenty of criticism – and also awards – for Downfall, in which it was said that Bruno Ganz, an established giant of European acting, humanised Hitler to a degree with which many viewers were uncomfortable. The film became much parodied on the internet. Hirschbiegel's subsequent career has been less than stellar, with The Invasion, his remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, starring Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman, being snuck out without press screenings and travelling almost instantly to DVD. His film Five Minutes of Heaven, set against the troubles in Belfast and starring Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt, was not released in UK cinemas but did air on BBC2. Watts's Diana will portray the princess over the last two years of her life, a period already much chronicled in books and court cases, one rife with conspiracy theories and conjecture. I can't see William and Kate attending the premiere.
Coming to the Boyle
Danny Boyle is a busy fellow. He's creating the Olympic opening ceremony and has just emerged from recording the music to it with his old collaborators, Underworld. But he's also putting the finishing touches to his next film, Trance, starring James McAvoy – although I believe that, although already shot, Boyle's had to put the edit on hold until his Olympic duties are fulfilled. However, I also hear the biggest headache for northern lad Boyle is how his new film will be pronounced. He calls it Trance with a short, northern "a", and I understand he flinches every time southern producers and journalists ask him about Trance, pronounced with a long "a".
Bafta bets
For what it's worth, I think Gary Oldman will win best actor tonight at the Baftas. Best film will be The Artist, best actress Meryl Streep, best director might go to Lynne Ramsay, best screenplay could be The Guard, best foreign film will go to A Separation. Best doc should be Senna, and while it's nice to see that category at the Baftas at last, the fact that they could only come up with three nominations on its debut seems to defeat the object, which was surely to show the depth of documentary making at the moment. The omissions? Olivia Colman from the action categories, of course, and Carol Morley's Dreams of a Life.
