Nicole Kidman has confessed to being embarrassed about stripping off for a London play - but she soon lost her inhibitions and found nudity fitted in perfectly with the part, she told Vogue magazine.
The Australian actress won rave reviews for her performance in The Blue Room. One critic called her performance "pure theatrical Viagra". The play, an adaptation by David Hare of Arthur Schindler's La Ronde, opens in New York next month.
Queen Sofia of Spain has inaugurated a passageway in a 16th century monastery to allow women to see nearly a dozen Goya frescos for the first time. The corridor was built at the Aula Dei monastery, near Zaragoza, to bypass a centuries-old ban on women. Before, visitors had to pass through the monks' living quarters to see the frescos.
Britain's oldest person yesterday celebrated her 114th birthday. Annie Jennings, of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, took on the title following the death of Lucy Askew from Sevenoaks, Kent, last December. A spokeswoman for the Guinness Book of Records said they had been told about Annie by the Labour MP Tony Benn, who mentioned an elderly lady in his constituency.
Sporty Spice is going solo - and hopes to cut her first album with help from Madonna. Melanie Chisholm (Mel C) also disclosed the name of her record producer boyfriend in an interview with Cosmopolitan. He is Jake Davies and they met in a recording studio in Dublin, Mel says.