Political Moves - A hip hop musical based on Nick Clegg's role in forming the coalition is to be staged in Suffolk in the spring. Nicked will dramatise the Lib Dem leader's "struggle to decide which way to go" when the general election resulted in a hung parliament. Steven Atkinson, artistic director of the HighTide Festival in Suffolk, said "They are all in there, Cameron, Clegg, Brown and the Milibands." The play is due to be staged from 30 April - just before the 5 May referendum on changing the voting system, a key concern of Mr Clegg's. Mr Atkinson said it would continue to be written until the last minute.
Festival Update - U2 have confirmed they will play at this year's Glastonbury festival. In a video speech at the 2011 NME Awards in London, guitarist The Edge said the band would headline on Friday 24 June. It will be the band's debut at the festival at Worthy Farm in Pilton, Somerset - they had been due to play in 2010 but frontman Bono injured his back and the performance was cancelled. Coldplay and Beyonce have already been announced as the other two headliners.
Rock Royalty - Queen stars Roger Taylor and Brian May have opened a new London exhibition to mark the rock band's 40th anniversary, calling the experience "moving". "There are things I have forgotten," said Taylor at the launch of Stormtroopers In Stilettos - which covers Queen's formative years. The musician added that many of the exhibits reminded him of the band's late frontman Freddie Mercury.
The exhibition runs until 12 March at the Old Truman Brewery in east London. Themed rooms in the exhibition space - documenting Queen's journey to fame - are dedicated to the band's first albums and feature artwork, costumes made by British designer Zandra Rhodes and the band's instruments, plus a recreation of the studio in which Bohemian Rhapsody was recorded. It also features video footage, interviews and photographs. "It's quite shocking for us to suddenly bring back what happened all those years ago in such vivid detail," said drummer Taylor.
In The Post - British stage musicals are being celebrated with eight new commemorative stamps, launched by the Royal Mail. Images from We Will Rock You, Blood Brothers, Oliver! and Spamalot will appear on first class stamps while Me and My Girl, The Rocky Horror Show, Billy Elliot and Return to the Forbidden Planet appear on the 97p stamps. Philip Parker of Royal Mail Stamps said, "Our Musicals Stamps reflect the diversity and popularity of the wide range of musicals that have graced not only West End stages, but also hundreds of others around the world."
(Jim Evans)
