The hottest ticket in town

Kate Winslet and three more of Hollywood's biggest stars will be appearing together on the London stage - for one night only.

IF YOU saw The Blue Room before Tom Cruise dropped by, caught Little Malcolm and his Struggle Against The Eunuchs at the Hampstead Theatre (that is, before it moved to the West End) and booked your tickets for The Ice Man Cometh months before the opening night, then today you will need to be quick off the mark.

The latest Hollywood-rated star to hit the London stage is Kate Winslet. But for one night only. And unlike, the three plays mentioned above, with Winslet you get quadruple your money: she makes her London stage debut next month alongside Melanie Griffith, Cal-ista Flockhart, and Cate Blanchett. That's Mrs Antonio Banderas, Ms Ally McBeal and the hot new actress currently wowing them in the cinemas as Elizabeth (plus model Sophie Dahl and Meera "Goodness Gracious Me" Sayal and, of course, Winslet) on stage on the same night. The woman who persuaded them to do this is American writer- performer Eve Ensler. The reason? It's for charity. The gala night - on Valentine's Day - will be a special performance of Ensler's Vagina Monologues and, as the name suggests, it's to raise money for women's causes. Ensler also believes she offers the star performers "something worthwhile - actresses, especially those over 30, are given so much rubbish that this must be a relief not having to play someone's secretary or the lead's mother". Does anyone refuse? "Very few," she says. "If you get one person on board, others follow -- there's safety in numbers." It was a hit off-Broadway, despite initial fears that the title would put off many theatregoers. In fact, when Ensler devised the first all-star V-Day, an adapted version of her one-woman show (which has just opened in London), big names were falling over themselves to get in on the act. The line-up in New York included Whoopi Goldberg, Winona Ryder, Glenn Close and Susan Sarandon. Ensler's audience is equally starry (Hillary Clinton caught a production in Washington) and the writer has just completed screenplays for Close and Goldie Hawn. Ensler says she was inspired to write award-winning Monologues when friend, who was going through the menopause, described herself as "dried-up" and "useless". Ensler went to interview more than 200 women, asking them about the most intimate details of their body. "Like all good things it evolved accidentally -- I wasn't trying to make a statement," says Ensler. "I loved these women's amazing accounts of their lives." The Monologues are based on those stories - "some funny, some serious, others silly". The Monologues was a way of getting a message across "describing how women really feel about themselves". She has her critics: "A lot of feminists have problems with the show because includes facts they didn't want to hear, such as after 30-odd years of feminism women are still uncomfortable with their bodies, or value themselves men's terms." The Monologues, says Ensler "may not be politically correct, but it's the truth." lV-Day gala on 14 February at the Old Vic, SE1; for tickets call 0171 839 8786. The Vagina Monologues is at the King's Head, N1 until 7 March. Review: page 58.

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