THEATRE / The 1995 Wish List

The 1995 Wish List: Helen Mirren, as rumoured, will star opposite Patrick Stewart in the revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Felicity Kendal will play at least one role without a pair of glasses.

Bill Nighy will shave his head and act without running his fingers through his hair.

Angela Lansbury will return to the theatre. Likewise Paul Scofield.

Juliet Stevenson (above) will do a rip-roaring comedy.

Deborah Findlay will be offered more work than she knows what to do with. Likewise Linda Bassett, Lynda Bellingham, Zoe Wanamaker, Penelope Wilton.

Elizabeth Spriggs and Anna Massey will be given Damehoods.

Caryl Churchill will write a play for all of the above.

Nottingham Playhouse's revival of Alan Bennett's Enjoy will transfer to the West End.

Arnold Wesker will write popular drama with a political edge for a wide audience, ie EastEnders. Likewise Edward Bond with Brookside.

New plays about the following will be banned: adaptations of novels; bio-musicals; child-abuse; disguised homosexuality; disparate people sharing a squat; eating disorders; famous people meeting, talking and doing nothing; plays in which characters are known solely by gender or letters of the alphabet.

Theatres will reopen, audiences will flock to new work, the Government will pour money into the arts.

And pigs will fly.