The Merry Widow wasn't quite the woman we thought she was according to singer Jan Hartley. She talks to Viv Hardwick about opera and Ayckbourn while theatre company boss Neal Foster looks at how he persuaded the stars to help him put children's shows on the map.

THE description "gritty and rather shocking" hardly seems to describe Franz Lehar's The Merry Widow, but the singer playing the title role, Jan Hartley, reveals that the latest version visiting Newcastle has gone back to its roots. She agrees that in recent years the role has become associated with leading comediennes and gained a fluffy image which tended to ignore the "politics, sexual liberation for women and the idea of a liberated woman with an independent fortune which was considered risqu back in 1905".

The Carl Rosa Company, led by Middlesbrough's Peter Mulloy, asked Jeremy Sams to produce a new translation from a work once considered so controversial that Lehar was offered 5,000 crowns to burn it.

Hartley, fresh from Guys And Dolls in Vienna and Lady Be Good in Lisbon, is joined by comic actors Victor Spinetti and former 'Allo 'Allo 'Good moaning' policeman Arthur Bostrum to ensure that the production arriving at Tyneside's Theatre Royal next week packs plenty of punch.

The young-looking Hartley also rejects the idea that "the widow Hanna" has to be an older woman and adds: "the way we are playing it is the mid to late 30s which seems feasible".

"This is a woman rejected by a young suitor who has gone away with her father and married an old man of wealth who subsequently dies... and we have a good idea why. It's assumed that the gap between her leaving Paris and returning is ten to 15 years, but it could be as little as two years," she explains.

This isn't Hartley's first link with fame in the North-East and recalls giving up quite a lucrative project in 1992 for the chance of working with Alan Ayckbourn on Dreams From A Summer House.

Most performers come away with an Ayckbourn story, as well as the warm glow of working with the world's second most-performed playwright, and Hartley is no exception.

Her tale is: "It was an amazing experience. I was creating the role of Belle, based on the story of Beauty And The Beast, and the concept was that she couldn't speak and came from a land where people only sang.

"What he'd done on the set was place real grass and I was pregnant with my first child so I was starting to get morning sickness. After a while the grass on the set started to go off and smelled really mouldy and disgusting and I had to go and see Alan and ask him to please re-turf the set. He said he was very sorry and brought in new turf every few days to, basically, stop me from throwing up during the show."

* The Merry Widow runs next week, Tuesday-Saturday, at Newcastle Theatre Royal. Box Office: 0870 905 5060

NEAL Foster is not only the rare sight of a major company's actor-manager, but tells the incredible tale of how he persuaded 15 famous performers to help him launch the Birmingham Stage Company.

Back in 1990 he needed to raise £15,000 to stage a debut production of The Seagull and hit on the idea of door-stepping West End shows and asking famous faces if they'd appear in fund-raising face-to-face interviews at the nearby Playhouse Theatre.

"I simply went around all the theatres before the shows and grabbed them as they turned up," he explains.

Judi Dench, Prunella Scales, Donald Sinden, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Lemmon, Glenn Close, Michael Frayn, Ian McKellan, Alan Bennett, Fiona Fullerton, Jean Boht, Derek Jacobi, Peter O'Toole and Richard Dreyfuss were among those to agree.

"They were all good guests and Jack in particular was great and told some fantastic stories. I asked quite general questions but I always made sure the first question was difficult because I felt if I gave them 'a right hook' they'd have to think about it and then the answer would be fresh," he says. The supposedly "difficult" Hoffman was a lot easier to deal with than his personal assistant who demanded a legal contract from New York with a stipulation "no longer than one hour because of his voice".

"After two hours, the stage manager was on stage making frantic signs for me to make him stop. He just had a ball," he says.

Foster raised £10,000 and wasn't tempted to keep going after Peter O'Toole told him: "You've driven everyone mad with these interviews. The others have kept in touch because they're all nice people, but now you've met me and now you know it's not on to hang around stage doors."

Even more incredibly, Foster used a theatre then owned by Jeffrey Archer. "I'm told he was furious at how much I was charged, especially when the board was told about the £200 charge and decided they weren't happy and reduced the fee to £50." says Foster.

As a result the Birmingham Stage Company sprang into life and became established two years later with funding "that was more fun than an Arts Council application form".

The result is that the company's delightful production of George's Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl now fills the gap in Newcastle Theatre Royal's brochure left by the cancellation of Tom, Dick & Harry starring Joe Pasquale for the week of September 27-October 2.

The incredible tale features an evil granny (played by Foster) who grows to be 30 feet tall after George tricks her into taking medicine which will either improve her mood or blow her head off!

* The magical production, adapted by Stuart Paterson of Newcastle Playhouse fame, runs Tuesday, September 28 - Sat, October 2. Box Office: 0870 905 5060, fax 0191-230 3411, www.theatreroyal.co.uk

Published: 16/09/2004