1. Discuss the following before you listen.

a) What are some of the main events in the life of Jesus Christ?

Who were some of the main characters in his life?

b) Why do you think Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber chose to

write a musical about Jesus Christ?

c) Name some famous people that you would call 'superstars'.

Why do you think Rice and Lloyd Webber called Jesus Christ a 'superstar'?

d) Why do you think some people protested about the musical?

2. Listen to the first part. What does Tim Rice say about the questions in 1 above?

3. Are these sentences true or false? Correct the false ones.

a) There haven't been many versions of the story of Jesus. b) At first they wanted to write about Judas Iscariot.

c) They always knew it would be a success.

d) The record was an immediate success in America.

e) He saw a baby being christened with the name Jesus Christ Superstar.

13. Part two

The actor

The interviewer next talks to Paul Nicholas, the first actor to play the part of Jesus Christ Superstar. What problems might he have had with this role?

Listen and answer the questions.

a) Why does he think the show was so successful?

b) Why did he find it a strange part to play?

c) When and why did he cry?

d) How and why did his attitude change after a few weeks in the part?

e) What are the two things that make Paul Nicholas and the interviewer laugh?

f) What is the interviewer's final question?

What is Paul's answer?

 14. Translate the following into Ukrainian:

"I cannot say that I greatly cared for "The Importance of Being Earnest". It amused me, of course; but unless comedy touches me as well as amuses me, it leaves me with a sense of having wasted my evening. I go to the theatre to be moved to laughter, not to be trickled or bustled into it.

I am in a somewhat foolish position concerning a play at the Opera Comique, whither I was bidden this day week. For some reason I was not supplied with a program; so that I never learnt the name of the play. I believe I recognized some of the members of the company – generally a very difficult thing to do in a country where, with a few talented exceptions, every actor is just like every other actor – but they have now faded from my memory. At the end of the second act the play had advanced about as far as an ordinary dramatist would have brought it five minutes after the first rising of the curtain; or, say, as far as Ibsen would have brought it ten years before that event. Taking advantage of the second interval to stroll out into the Strand for a little exercise, I unfortunately forgot all about my business, and actually reached home before it occured to me that I had not seen the end of the play. Under these circumstances it would ill become me to dogmatize on the merits of the work or its performance. I can only offer the management my apologies"

/Bernard Shaw/

 15. Read the play review, translate it into Ukrainian and write a favourite review for a play you have seen.

FAME FOR ADAM COLEMAN

Why are there so many people queueing daily outside the Prince of Wales theatre to see a pantomime? The reason is Adam Coleman, one of the most brilliant former students of Castle School of Performing Arts, who is at the moment the most popular rock star in Britain. His fans usually queue to listen to him sing in pop concerts, but now they are fighting their way to find a seat to see him starring in Dick Whittington and His Cat. Pantomime actors generally provoke a polite enthusiasm from the public, whereas every time Adam comes into the spotlight, all you hear is squeals, screams and whistles from the stalls.

Adam, naturally, is the star attraction as Dick Whittington himself and even his co-star (a pretty girl disguised as a cat) doesn't really get a look in.

There are excited squeals as Adam appears on stage and the audience get positively sentimental later on when he sings the love-song All I ask of you. As soon as the curtain comes down a mysterious voice booming through the loudspeaker reminds the audience that copies of Adam's new album are on sale in the foyer, presumably with all the cokes and ice-creams.

The second act is more or less the same thing — lots of booing and hissing when the villain appears and enthusiastic loud applause when Dick rescues his true love from the tentacles of a giant octopus. All in all the whole show gets an ecstatic response.

After the show is over, Adam is relaxing lazily in his rather untidy dressing room among piles of fan letters — “They're always writing many more letters than I could possibly reply to, even if I lived two hundred years”.

He's changed out of Dick Whittington's tights and boots and he's wearing something a little more casual — a striped dressing gown.

The panto is the latest step in a career which has taken Adam Coleman from the stage of the small theatre of Castle School of Performing Arts through the chorus of the famous musical Oliver! to the top of the hit parade — in short, one of the most famous rock stars in Britain.

Moreover, the panto isn't the only work he's doing these days. In fact, early in the morning he and his band are working hard to record the soundtrack of a film whose title is still a secret. However, what is not a secret is that the album will certainly be a hit next summer!

16. Write an unfavourable review for a play you didn't like.

17. Discussion

Work in groups. Choose the situation you like best.

1. Discuss the difference between a play in the theatre or a novel and their screen versions. What do you like and what do you dislike about the screen versions of the book you admire?

2. Imagine that you have seen a very bad production of some play which you like very much as a work of literature. Write a letter to the stage director discussing the weak points of the production and asking him to make changes in the cast, scenery and general design. /The play must be a famous one, like "Romeo and Juliet" or "Hamlet" or something equally well-known/.

3. You are taking a friend of yours who is in Kyiv for the first time to the National Opera and Ballet Theatre. On your way to the theatre you are telling your friend about the most famous productions and the best singers and dancers. Use a dialogue form.