Here’s a novel way of picking the star for your new production opening in London’s West End. “More than 3,000 women have aspired to the same dream: to star, at the London Palladium, in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s £3m production of The Sound of Music. The nation is swarming with wannabe Marias. But BBC1’s eight-part reality talent show How do You Solve a Problem like Maria (which starts 29 July), must eventually settle on one woman – a new, unknown Maria. After auditions in Cardiff, Edinburgh, Belfast, Manchester and London, 56 contestants have been selected to train at ‘Maria School’ (imagine the yodelling classes).”