A new weekly series wonders which of the artists we value will last into the next century

The Winter's Tale Stratford RST Mr Puntila and His Man Matti Albery, WC1 Song at Twilight King's Head, N1

A SONG AT TWILIGHT

Kathy Burke says she knows her place when it comes to casting. And it's not among the beautiful people. By James Rampton

The magazine Theatre Record which reprints the theatre reviews of the national papers, carries a four-page supplement that lists which productions are in the pipeline. Month after month (year after year, in fact) it lists an entry saying Emma Thompson is down to play Rosalind in As You Like It at the Donmar. We're still waiting.

Little Malcolm and His Struggle against the Eunuchs Hampstead Theatre London

LIKE MANY British female film stars of the Thirties and Forties, Valerie Hobson exuded breeding and class, but she also brought to her performances a delightfully sophisticated sense of humour and a refreshing element of spunk, whether as the wise-cracking heroine of Q Planes, the resourceful double agent of The Spy in Black, the haughty Estella of Great Expectations, the shrewd widow in Kind Hearts and Coronets, or, on stage, the dignified but determined governess Anna Leonowens in The King and I.

A wistful Norman Wisdom talks to Paul Vallely on the eve of a festival celebrating his 50 years in cinema

FISHING LINES

HER somehow 18th-century rococo title, her flamboyant image and penchant for practical jokes and occasional litigation made Maureen, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava the stuff of more than 70 years' worth of high society gossip columns.

'Oh God, what a great idea!' In 30 years, only one play has aroused Tom Stoppard's envy: Peter Shaffer's 'Black Comedy'. Now it's being paired with 'The Real Inspector Hound'. The playwrights talk it over

Noel Coward wasn't always a cocktail-swilling, dressing-gowned matinee turn. Here, his biographer Philip Hoare tells of the 16-year-old shoplifter and subversive revealed in a bundle of newly discovered photographs

Homosexuality was once the love that dared not speak its name. Some gay men preferred it that way.

CLASSIC CINEMA