From Lady Dedlock to Lady Deadshot

THREE times a week, viewers have been following the every move of Gillian Anderson’s sultry and aloof Lady Dedlock in the BBC’s mustwatch TV adaptation of Bleak House. For her next role, she has chosen something completely different — and quite right, too. Gillian started shooting the movie Straightheads yesterday. It’s a thriller and it explores the moral issues surrounding violent revenge. In the film, Ms Anderson plays a businesswoman who is sexually assaulted while visiting her family in Shropshire. No one messes with this lady, so she grabs her father’s old sniper rifle and, not to put too fine a point on it, lets the rapist feel the full impact of her rage. Director Dan Reed has cast clever Danny Dyer as Ms Anderson’s beau and Anthony Calf as the guy who ends up walking in a most peculiar way, by the time Ms Anderson has finished with him. Bleak House continues for several more weeks. I’ve seen a few episodes in advance and there are some terrific moments coming involving Lady Dedlock in scenes with Esther and Tulkinghorn, played superbly by Anna Maxwell Martin and Charles Dance.

CAMERON MACKINTOSH was in New York yesterday preparing for next autumn’s opening of Mary Poppins. The show will open at the New Amsterdam Theatre on 42nd Street. Cameron, with director Richard Eyre and Thomas Schumacher, the Disney theatrical chief, will have to work out what elements of the London show they take to the U.S. and what bits they ditch. Some scarier moments have put off many parents from taking very young children, meaning that elder siblings may also have missed out. So look for Mary Poppins to become more familyfriendly.