There are four central characters - Gray Fry Rik Mayall and the producer Duncan Weldon - and they
There are four central characters - Gray, Fry, Rik Mayall and the producer Duncan Weldon - and they are nicely differentiated. It's Michelle Pfeiffer. n SIMON GRAY has written his second drama of betrayal in a year. The first one, Cell Mates, closed after Stephen Fry left the production. The second one, Fat Chance (Faber, pounds 5.99), tells the story of Fry's departure. Gray's diaries have been filmed for TV with Alan Bates playing Simon Gray. Reading Fat Chance you wonder whether it has a chance (slim, average or fat) of making it on to the stage.
So who is playing this demanding part? Not Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks or Denzel Washington It's even more right-on than that. n IN Dangerous Minds, a film which opens here in the autumn, an ex-Marine leaves after 10 years in the service to become an inner-city high-school teacher. Challenging to colleagues, inspiring to students, the ex-Marine brings love and admiration to the classroom, while at the same time fighting to change a complacent system that has given up on teaching its students to think Phew That's a lot for one Marine to do. He might be emerging out of dry ice to sing a ballad on Top of the Pops In the LAPD photo he looks tanned, rueful, interesting A bit hard, even He looks like a film star. Grant's up in the clouds with absurdly wavy hair and a winsome smile.
But US law says you cannot use someone's image for financial gain without that someone's approval and Supergrass didn't get Grant's Maybe they should have. Look at the current posters for The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain. For the release of "Caught by the Fuzz", their debut single in America, Capitol Records planned a poster campaign using a photo of Hugh Grant. The photo they wanted to use was the one the Los Angeles Police Department released after arresting Grant for lewd conduct. n OVER here, their debut album I Should Coco is No 1 and heading towards platinum, and their new single "Alright" is at No 5; but over in the States, Supergrass have run into trouble. Admirably unfazed by the absence of the Amazing Hostess Trolley which is his show's conceptual cornerstone (it's stuck on a lorry half way up the M1), he supplies his audience with the perfect riposte to sellers of lucky heather: "You're a tinker, living in the street with your children, how lucky can it be?"All shows: Edinburgh Pleasance, 0131 556 6550, from tonight..
