You might be forgiven for thinking that Andrew Lloyd Webber, the most popular and profitable composer in British showbiz history, had already cornered the sound of music, but he has gone one step further by announcing that he will be producing a stage version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein (not to mention Julie Andrews) mega-hit.

The Sound of Music will leave its usual territory — fresh Alpine meadows with never a cloud in the sky —for the rather more crowded conditions of Victoria Street: the Victoria Palace Theatre, to be exact.

Casting is bound to attract a huge amount of attention — names being bandied about to play the young nun-turned-governess Maria include Maria Friedman and Martine McCutcheon. Denise van Outen has also been mentioned, but it's believed that she will appear in a new version of Lloyd Webber's Tell Me on A Sunday at around the same time.

—By Paul Webb Theatrenow