FRY GETS A HANDEL/HALLEUJAH!

Early days still but Stephen Fry seems likely to direct a life of Handel as his second feature, after Bright Young Things.

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The 18th century Handel, the man behind the Messiah, may sound a little dull for a cinema hero.

He was neither as irreverent as Mozart or as eccentric as Beethoven, two of the musical giants who followed him.

But the script will get around that concern by focusing on the composer’s main muse, one Susannah Cibber, who brings enough sauce to the table to make a film on her own.

The sister of Rule Britannia composer Thomas Arne, she was pushed by her family into marrying the physically repulsive but influential Theophilus Cibber, had an affair with a more attractive chap, was gambled away by her cuckolded husband and wound up singing in the premiere of Handel’s Messiah in Dublin, much to the consternation of the Church.

Handel was an altogether less controversial figure. A favourite of George I, he spent most of his adult life in England and became a British citizen in 1727 and wrote anthems for George II.

Whatever the composer's lack of big screen charisma, it is likely that the effervescent Fry (pictured above in army green for his role in the forthcoming Valykrie) will ensure that he cuts a dash for at least 90 minutes on camera, in work currently titled Halleujah!.

Posted April 14, 2008.