Who’ll play tragic Amy? Winehouse’s life and death may be made right into a sensational film

Amy Winehouse’s extraordinary life, and death, may be made right into a sensational film.

Several Hollywood producers are considering buying the screen rights to a book in regards to the hugely gifted, but fatally flawed, North London singer.

There’s no screenplay and there isn’t a director yet, and any film continues to be far off.

But there’s a tome called Saving Amy, written last year by celebrity journalist Daphne Barak, who also made a documentary of an analogous name for Channel 4.

It details Barak’s friendship with Amy and the way she accompanied her to St Lucia and kept a watch on her while she was ‘resting’ at various hospitals in England.

Barak also befriended Winehouse’s ex Blake Fielder-Civil and her father Mitch.

If the correct calibre of script writer are located to show Ms Barak’s jottings right into a decent screenplay, and an A-list director hired to direct, then there can be hope for one of these project.

But a very powerful factor is find an actress to portray Winehouse.

It must be someone who can sing and act and she or he would have to be someone with spirit, energy and ability, not some nobody  from some TV talent show and positively not Lady Gaga — that will be a travesty. 

David Hare spoke of any other night, at a superb tribute to Vanessa Redgrave hosted by the Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences, that actors are vital contributors to any movie, often more vital than the director.

Such someone is wanted for the Winehouse film.

I gather that Tessa Ross from Film4, among the executive producers of the Margaret Thatcher film The Iron Lady, and Jeff Berg from ICM in La are in talks concerning the Winehouse film and the way to develop it.

You’ll find Neverland within the West End Soon

A stage musical version of the film Finding Neverland, which starred Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet, is being planned for the West End.

Julian Ovenden as J. M. Barrie and Jenna Russell as Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (her sons inspired Barrie to write down Peter Pan) will perform in two workshops of the show with an entire cast in London on December 12 .

Film version: Kate Winslet (left) and Johnny Depp (right) starred within the 2004 film Finding Neverland

Rob Ashford, who will direct and choreograph the show, told me that originally it was going to open inside the U.S. but he suggested to Harvey Weinstein — who was behind the film and is producing the musical — that they work on it in London.

The show’s composer is Scott Frankel, who wrote Grey Gardens.

A friend who heard the score at a workshop in Ny described it as ‘beautiful and moving’, some extent echoed by Ovenden, who said he was struck by how much the piece moved him.

The idea is to run Neverland at a regional theatre, then bring it to the West End next autumn or early in 2013, or as theatre availability permits.

Directorial debut: Dustin Hoffman is directing Quartet, starring Maggie Smith and Tom Courtenay (pictured)

Dustin Hoffman is at the set of Quartet and the joint’s jumping.

There’s a chap playing rag at the piano and another on saxophone.

This is during a break from filming. There’s energy within the room and everybody is smiling.

Dustin appears to be like having the time of his life. He’s 74 and making his directorial debut working with Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay (above) — who suggested to Ronald Harwood that his play Quartet, set in a house for retired opera singers and musicians, be became a film — Michael Gambon, Billy Connolly, Pauline Collins and a bunch of serious character actors.

Producer Finola Dwyer looked on and marvelled. ‘To have had the career he’s had and to be doing this during this act of his life is remarkable,’ she said.

Courtenay said Hoffman is a master of timing. ‘He makes jokes the full time and it keeps the energy levels up. Maggie loves being directed by him.’

An executive from film distributor Momentum watched the rushes and told Dwyer he’d just seen the movie’s main action scene. ‘What’s that?’ she asked. ‘The croquet,’ he replied.

Francesca Annis at ‘Company’ Rehearsals on the Youth Arts Theatre in Battersea

As rehearsals for Stephen Sondheim’s seminal musical Company kicked into action, Francesca Annis (left) lifted up her knee and grabbed her derriere as her fellow actresses embarked on a song about poor Bobby, a pal they think is stuck at home playing solitaire.

‘The ladies have a view of Bobby. They suspect he’s on his own awaiting the telephone to ring,’ says Francesca’s co-star Samantha Spiro. ‘However the men know he’s out fornicating.’

Bobby, or Robert, as he’s variously known by his married friends, is played by Daniel Evans.

As Francesca and Samantha join Anna-Jane Casey, Samantha Seager and Claire Price to lament about their ‘poor baby’ being on their own, he’s romping on a bed with Lucy Montgomery, who plays an air hostess.

Lynne Page, the choreographer, moved in to indicate that Daniel and Lucy rough up the sheets a piece more and that her ladies ‘thrust’ out this fashion and that so the dance movements represent, she later explained to me, ‘their sexual frustration and their eager for Bobby’.

Observing all of this was Jonathan Munby, who’s directing Sondheim’s 1970 show about Bobby, who, in the course of the process the musical, goes on a journey of self-discovery.

Munby was rehearsing along with his cast in Battersea, South London, before decamping to Sheffield, where Company will begin previews on the Crucible on November 29.

Munby, Samantha and Francesca explained that though Company is determined on the heart of cultural change, Bobby would have gone to school inside the Fifties and so would have spent his adolescence in a conservative milieu.

‘He’s not the generation of change and he’s stressed from his peers to get married,’  said Munby.

The director has cast his production with actors armed having the ability to probe Sondheim’s lyrics.

And it’s hard to fathom that Company was considered such an experimental piece when first staged in Big apple 40 years ago.

‘It’s not a show of normal chorus numbers or linear narrative. They  thought they were going to be laughed out of the room,’ Munby told me.

Daniel, who’s also the artistic director of the Sheffield Theatres, already has two award-winning Sondheim roles under his belt — Merrily We Roll Along (which he did with Samantha on the Donmar) and Sunday Within the Park With George.

And each of the cast have real humdingers to sing.

One of the foremost famous is The girls Who Lunch, which brings Francesca (who plays the acerbic Joanne) back to musicals after a protracted gap.

This is her first foray into the genre since she appeared in John Barry’s Passion Flower Hotel inside the Sixties.

‘I did that after i used to be very young — ugh,’ she told me, creating a gagging noise.

‘It was a nightmare, so I haven’t sung since, previously,’ she said. Singing teacher Mary Hammond advised her to sing at home.

‘But i used to be so traumatised from that early musical that I couldn’t think about a single song. I’ve never sung within the bath or in my car. i suspect I blocked it,’ she said, as Munby declared that he and the forged have liberated her.

As well as her musical trauma, Francesca also suffered physical aches and pains after rehearsals when she awoke to locate her sides, knees and back hurt due to the singing and dancing.

She said: ‘It has taken a while, but I’m getting there. Now I sing always!’

Beware of…

Sally Hawkins shall be in Nick Payne’s play Constellations

As we chatted we both agreed that the piece reminded us of Charlie Kaufman’s film Synecdoche, Ny and, perhaps, a bit of Terrence Malick’s work. First, though, Sally will play Mrs Joe, Pip’s violent sister in Mike Newell’s film Great Expectations. She can use a tickler, more like a whip, she said. ‘Can’t wait to apply it’!

The cast also includes Angel Coulby (Guinevere in Merlin), Janet Montgomery, Mel Smith, Anthony Head, Jane Asher, Tom Hughes and Caroline Quentin.

Jacqueline Bisset who will star in in Stephen Pioliakoff’s five-part drama Dancing At the Edge for BBC2

The production, directed by Adrian Noble and designed by Anthony Ward will run on the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford from February 1 through February 11 before touring Nottingham, Bath, Brighton, Richmond and Newcastle — after which it might head into the West End.

Hare told me the plays would move into ‘town’ once Ms Chancellor completes a second series of Abi Morgan’s BBC TV drama The Hour.