Watch out for . ..

CATHERINE McCORMACK (pictured), who will play Mrs Robinson in a new production of Terry Johnson’s adaptation of Charles Webb’s novel The Graduate. (The 1968 film version, directed by Mike Nichols, famously starred Anne Bancroft in the role, alongside Dustin Hoffman.) Lucy Bailey will direct the play, which will run at the West Yorkshire Play house from April 28. ‘It’s a black comedy/satire on American values, which is very good timing!’ said the director. She described Mrs Robinson as ‘a very lonely and quite disturbed person . . . she’s a raging alcoholic and her marriage is unhappy.’ Bailey added that she was thrilled that McCormack was doing the role. ‘I was delighted,’ Bailey told me. ‘We sat down over a pint of Guinness and I thought: “She’s my girl!” And when she ordered a second pint, I knew that she was right.’ Jack Monaghan and Emma Curtis have also been cast. rOBert linDsay (above), who will portray the British cinematographer Jack Cardiff in a new play by terry Johnson called Prism, which will run at london’s hampstead theatre this autumn. Cardiff was an innovator behind the camera: he made art with light. he won an Oscar for his camerawork on Black narcissus, and much acclaim for his other pictures that included the red shoes, the african Queen and Death On the nile, to name but three. executives at hampstead theatre declined to discuss the production. GARY BARLOW, director Tim Firth and producers David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers, who are believed to be in discussions with Disney and Decca about collaborating on the cast album for The Girls, which is in previews at the Phoenix Theatre and opens on Tuesday. I saw the musical, based on the film Calendar Girls, again this week. To my mind, it reflects some of the best aspects of British life.