Into the woods, and who can tell...what's waiting on the journey?

Another big-screen big-budget Sondheim adaptation opens at Xmas this year (after 2008's Sweeney Todd) - and its cast is quite a roll-call of beloved thesps including Johnny Depp, Meryl Streep, Christine Baranski, Frances de la Tour, Simon Russell Beale, Annette Crosbie and Tracey Ullman(!)

Into The Woods, one of Mr Sondheim's finest, most complex (and funniest) musicals, is (remarkably) a Disney production, and was primarily made in Shepperton Studios, London.

From the trailer alone, one just knew Miss Streep was born to play The Witch...

Into The Woods trailer

Heaven only knows how this will compare to our experience of the stage version at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in 2010, complete with Dame Judi as The Giant and a full-scale breeze blowing the trees that complimented the atmosphere perfectly, I don't know...

...nevertheless I can't deny it - I am dying to see this one...

Into The Woods on IMDB.

I might as well have said I was going to go on the streets

From Catherine of Aragon to Queen Victoria, from Margaret Lloyd George to Margaret Meldrew, Annette Crosbie has been a staple of our screens for seven decades, and is quite rightly regarded as a "national treasure".

Happy 80th birthday today, Miss Crosbie! Here is one of those classic moments of comedy for which she is most famous, playing the ever-patient stooge to the irascible Victor Meldrew:

The Valley of Fear: Frozen cat

Facts about Miss Crosbie:

• Her parents were horrified at her choice of acting as a career: "I might as well have said I was going to go on the streets! In those days, acting was a profession that involved men putting on your make-up. It was a huge bombshell for them," she said.
• As a young woman, she had a fling with none other than Richard Burton.
• Her daughter Selina Griffiths played the drunken daughter of old Noreen in Benidorm
• Nowadays she is a dedicated campaigner for the welfare of retired racing greyhounds, as well as president of the League Against Cruel Sports.

Annette Crosbie OBE (born 12th February 1934)