Make the strong appear weak victims look like bullies and vice

Make the strong appear weak, victims look like bullies, and vice versa. With his Reformation, (published by Allen Lane), church historian Diarmaid MacCulloch has won the 2004 British Academy book prize. Described by the judges as “a majestic survey”, it was chosen from among 200 books submitted.. Since the early Nineties, the data-heavy techno-thrillers with which Michael Crichton followed early coups such as Jurassic Park have built up a massive reputation – for pomposity, hysteria, false prophecy and turgid preachiness.

Prey saw him waxing portentous about the “grey goo” menace of nanotechnology, with all the panache and plausibility of, well, the Prince of Wales, who believed it. In Rising Sun, he touted Japan as the irresistible threat to US supremacy – just as its economy plunged into a decade-long nose-dive. Since 1992, when oracle Crichton spoke, the American way has had as much to fear from his sinister Japs as from – Vanuatu, perhaps?
Vanuatu, as it happens, has a bearing on Crichton’s State of Fear (HarperCollins, £17.99). This 600-page leviathan of anti-environmentalist abuse should win hands down any contest for the clumsiest “novel” of 2004. The book operates as a fictional tract against green activists – seen as, at best, naive dupes and, at worst, terrorists. Having left Orion after her divorce from its then CEO – who was subsequently removed by his French overlords – she decamped to Headline.

This year, Hodder Headline became a sister company to Orion in the Hachette group, a situation not without its complications. Now comes the news that the keen huntswoman has bolted to Time Warner, where she will report to the formidable publishing director Ursula Mackenzie.* Good news for Penguin at the end of its annus horribilis of distribution nightmares. Life imitating art, what? Novel next?* Rosie de Courcy, who, as Mrs Anthony Cheetham, was one of the co-founders of Century and Orion, will begin the new year with a new job. First Hugh Grant plays a smarmy publisher (in Bridget Jones).

Now he’s going to be one of the judges in the final run-off for the Whitbread Book of the Year award in January, along with chair Sir Trevor McDonald, Mariella Frostrup and Michael Portillo. It was this number that inspired his famous comment, “It’s 50 per cent inspiration and 50 per cent perspiration.” In this case it’s 50 per cent vintage Waller and 50 per cent infectious performances To 22 January (0114-249 6000). Faber has ended its 75th anniversary year in grand style, with record results. Turnover was up 14 per cent, and a loss last year of £238,000 has become a profit of £452,000. Leading the company in “The Viper’s Drag/The Reefer Song” Joel Karie prowls round the stage.The show is beautifully choreographed by Carolene Hinds and the musical director and exuberant pianist David Shrubsole has no difficulty with the Harlem stride style of piano-playing, “the swinging left hand”, to which the bassman Will Collier adds his own distinctive touch.The opening sequence includes the enduring standard “Ain’t Misbehavin’”, from Waller’s own show Hot Chocolates, which also contained the plaintive “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue?”, given a terrifically poignant rendition by this company.It’s a shame that a way wasn’t found to incorporate “Honey Hush”, the number Waller penned after playing the Sheffield Empire. Suits are sharp, frocks are pretty, and even the khaki uniforms have a sort of glamour – at least in Enyonam Gbesemete’s smoky-voiced “When the Nylons Bloom Again”. The performers unwrap the characters and attitudes behind the music with perceptiveness and subtlety.More than 30 musical numbers flow seamlessly together.

The set design develops from simple keyboard backdrop to full-band set, and the lighting effects are delicious.A few pennants flutter over the “Yacht Club Swing” – given a neatly nautical roll by Akiya Henry who, in addition to her own nimble tap dancing in “Off-Time” makes an agile partner to Joel Karie in a spot of athletic jitterbugging. I wasn’t sure about her at first, but she wore black leather trousers in her screen test and I thought she was a little nasty. This movie is about a love triangle, and it was easy to think of this woman as a slut.”Beckinsale had lost the 70 pounds she gained while pregnant with Lily, and had headed to Los Angeles as soon as she finished filming the Merchant Ivory drama The Golden Bowl. As rap shows at the Brixton Academy go, screaming, swaying teenage girls shuffling alongside relaxed, head-nodding hip-hop heavies and chin-stroking postgraduates is pretty far from the norm.