Funnily enough, Donald Maxwell is in this production - as the Imam. I too thought that Ball would be signed up for the Caliph, but that role's gone to Alfie Boe, who's been marketed very strongly by his record company lately, so it will be interesting to listen to what he can do.

http://www.eno.org/whats-on/whats-on.php?id=99&season=current

That's Marty Pellow, t_i_n. Marti Webb's a lady; the second Evita and the original star of Tell me on a Sunday amongst other things...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marti_Webb

I remember her in the original London cast of this as well   with a very young Jeremy Irons and David Essex Oh, and Julie Covington.

Mort: whilst they were Godspelling at the Wyndhams, we were Josephing at the Albery, which shared the same stage door facilities...

Stanley: I can well believe it. Once La Diener departed, by the way, we had Paddy Larner. And Wright and Forrest came over to supervise some of the music calls, particularly those for the covers: despite my baritonal range, I ended up as the cover for the Caliph, and had a whole session with them for my numbers. The black version (Timbuktu) had recently opened on Broadway, and they'd been involved in that too, though not without trepidation, particularly at the singers' penchant for decorating, bending and otherwise altering the score as written. "Those singers, what a trial!" said one of them."They seemed to spend most of their time putting back virtually every single note that Borodin had decided to leave out."

Sorry if I intrude on your discussion, but I have a grump and a question.

Recently there are many people coming to the houses here with cards saying that they don't speak English and that they need help. They all have difficlut family situations.

Today a Bosnian woman came alone. She asked for money. She tried to get inside the house and I did not let her.
I gave her a few euro, but for some reason the experience did not agree with me.

On one hand I would be happy to help, but I don't know these people and I don't know how trustworthy they are.
We had gypsy here for a while with unpleasant begging patterns and some other. I don't know if government is helping them. I don't know why I was so scared of the women and why she was pushing me like that.
How do people deal with situations like that?

tp - don't give them any money. Talk back to them in Russian. If you really want to help, there must be suitable official charities around. Whenever I answer the door to someone unexpected, I always put on a I-haven't-the-time-or-patience-for-this face. Their faces usually drop when I open the door, probably because they were hoping to speak to a young person, old person or a woman, and I'm none of those. Or perhaps it's just my natural charm. Sorry if that sounds patronising but it's life and there are people out there who exploit such situations.

This is really a good point, A. I notice that if one gives ones they share their information.
I did close the door, but then for some stupid reason I opened it again. I am not going to make this mistake again (I hope). My first instinctive reaction was correct.