Freeman plays Bilbo Baggins, pictured, in Peter Jackson¿s The Hobbit movies and is set to appear in the third instalment, There And Back Again, in December

However, there are now countless cheap ticket deals, so why not give it a try!

The cast truly works hard; the second act is OK — but the first is still a mess; the mood at the box office is sombre; and word of mouth is like tar.

On Wednesday, Sylvia Short and her friend Cynthia Coates had paid £166 for two seats — £36 of that was booking fees. I paid £64 for mine; while the three women in front of us in the stalls paid £29.50 apiece. Forty-seven per cent of the audience had paid nothing. All part of marketing, I was told.

Ticket prices for I Can’t Sing, The X Factor musical, are like the show: all over the place.



















Olivia's killer singing voice to be heard on the big screen

Olivia Colman, who starred as a detective in ITV hit show Broadchurch, will make her singing debut in new film musical London Road

Olivia Colman, one of the most acclaimed actresses of her generation, is making her singing debut in London Road, a film musical about how a community in Ipswich was shattered when a serial killer murdered five women, and how it coped with the ensuing frenzy.



The movie, which will feature Batman star Tom Hardy in a small role, is based on the sung-through, documentary-style play London Road, which won awards during two sold-out runs at the National Theatre in 2011 and 2012.



Olivia starred as a detective involved in a murder hunt in the ITV hit Broadchurch, though her real breakthrough roles were the films Tyrannosaur and The Iron Lady, and the BBC TV drama Rev.



In London Road she will play Julie, the Neighbourhood Watch event organiser who comes up with the idea for London Road In Bloom as a way of shooing the darkness away.



Julie becomes the queen of the hanging baskets, and she sings about filling them with begonias, petunias and busy lizzies.



Rufus Norris, director of London Road on stage and now screen, said the piece explored how a ‘stigmatised community fought back after their district was blighted’.



Norris, who will take over from Nicholas Hytner as the NT’s artistic director in April 2015, worked on the screenplay with playwright Moira Buffini and London Road’s creators Alecky Blythe and Adam Cork.



Norris, who is filming in South-East London (standing in for Ipswich), said that for the film he needed to cast actors closer to the age of the real-life residents who were interviewed by Blythe when she was writing the play. Tom Hardy pursued Norris, because he wanted to be part of the project.



Batman star Tom Hardy will appear in a small role in the film after expressing how keen he was to join the project

He will play Mark, a taxi driver who has one scene where he sings about a rather morbid passion he enjoyed as teenager.



Linzi Hateley appeared in the play when it ran at the Olivier and will reprise the same part on screen: that of a retired school-teacher who’s the secretary of the Neighbourhood Watch.



Anita Dobson will play June, a keen line-dancer.

Members of the original ensemble will play various other parts in the film, though not the ones they created on stage.



They include Clare Burt, Rosalie Craig, Hal Fowler, Kate Fleetwood, Nick Holder, Claire Moore, Michael Shaeffer, Nicola Sloane, Paul Thornley, Howard Ward and Duncan Wisbey.



Several schoolgirls will also be featured. One will be played by Eloise Laurence, who was stunning in Norris’s directorial film debut, Broken.



The movie is being backed by BBC Films and Cuba Films, along with the British Film Institute and the NT.

Sienna joins Bradley Cooper in American Sniper

Sienna Miller signed on the dotted line on Wednesday night to star opposite Oscar-nominated Bradley Cooper on the movie American Sniper.



The film’s being directed by Clint Eastwood, and is based on real-life Navy Seal Chris Kyle, who was a perfect shot. Sienna will portray his wife.



The actress will film her scenes in Los Angeles next month.

Ewan McGregor to narrate BBC Radio 2 show

Ewan McGregor will narrate Mad About The Mustang on BBC Radio 2

Ewan McGregor (right), who enjoys racing around on expeditions on motorbikes and cars.



McGregor will narrate Mad About The Mustang on BBC Radio 2 on April 17, which tells the story of how Ford developed the car and launched it into showrooms on April 17, 1964.

Americans still love the Mustang. I nearly got a ride to the Oscars in a ’64 model a couple of years back, but everyone was worried about insuring the car, which was then worth around half a million bucks. Or so I was told.

Duo to play royals in Girls' Night Out



Rupert Everett and Emily Watson, who will portray George VI and Queen Elizabeth in the film Girls’ Night Out, a fictionalised account of how the royal princesses Elizabeth and Margaret celebrated VE Day on May 8, 1945, by slipping out of Buckingham Palace and joining in with the jubilant crowds.

Sarah Gadon will portray Elizabeth and Bel Powley will take the role of Margaret. And Jack Reynor will play a young soldier who looks out for Elizabeth on the big night.



Shooting begins on Monday on locations at Chatsworth and Belvoir castles.

