Pandora: What did the publisher say to the bishop?

(© Tim Sanders)

I hope that Bishop Gene Robinson, the American best known for being the first openly gay and non-celibate priest to be ordained, is in a forgiving mood when he flies to Britain at the end of the month.

Canterbury Press printed a full run of proof copies of his book In the Eye of the Storm – which details the hullabaloo surrounding his election to Bishop of New Hampshire, and Anglican splits – without Robinson's final chapter.

An eagle-eyed craftsmen prevented what would have been the pulping of the entire commercial print run. "We are now reprinting in time for publication on 30 April," says a spokeswoman for the publisher, which has apologised to Robinson. In other news, the Bish is to appear in the US edition of GQ magazine. Divine.

Cardinal pressed to show a little dramatic licence

This Sunday night sees the Criterion Theatre in London's West End host And Then They Came For Me, a play about the Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, posthumous step-sister of war diarist Anne Frank, who died aged 15 at Bergen-Belsen in 1945.

The producers of the drama – which will star Sir Philip Green's 19-year-old niece, Georgia Neville, as Frank – say they are in talks with the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, about staging a one-off performance at Westminster Cathedral.

"The Cardinal has agreed to a meeting over tea to discuss the idea," says the play's Muslim producer Nic Careem, a friend of Schloss. "We are just waiting for the diary date. Greg Mulholland, the MP for Leeds North-West has been very helpful."

Schloss, who lives in north London, says: "We are now such a multicultural, multiracial society with different religions. Yet people are still ignorant of the past. This [staging] would help show that hate leads to killing."

The Frank and Schloss families lived in hiding in the same Amsterdam building but were betrayed to the Nazis, captured and sent to concentration camps. Schloss's mother survived Auschwitz and married Anne Frank's father, Otto, after the war.

And Then They Came For Me has been staged in schools, prisons, the House of Commons and even Scotland Yard.

The Cardinal's press aide was unavailable for comment last night.

Drill thrills: Nyman's filthy Latin fundraising

Wash out that composer's mouth with soap! Michael Nyman, famous for his film scores, had patrons choking on their wine gums at London's Drill Hall Theatre, renowned for its avant garde gay and lesbian productions, which is under threat since the Arts Council cut its funding.

With the Australian soprano Marie Angel, Nyman performed I Sonetti Lussuriosi (The Lustful Sonnets), a series of erotic texts by the Renaissance poet Pietro Aretino (1492-1556), set to piano accompaniment by the 21st-century notesmith. Concert-goers were subjected to a torrent of precise lyrics celebrating fornication, which raised eyebrows among the Italians in the audience. A translator assisted. The original engravings from I Modi – the "Renaissance Kama Sutra" banned by the Pope – were screened.

Nyman experienced premature termination when one of his piano pedals stopped working, but an engineer stepped in and swiftly enabled the tuneful rumpy-pumpy to resume.

Doherty's sheepish fans

Pete Doherty's concert at the Royal Albert Hall in a fortnight is not the only musical casualty of his sudden imprisonment. The narcotics-impaired minstrel, jailed on Tuesday for 14 weeks for breaching his probation, will tonight be unable to perform at Walkman's "Spring Fling" party, where he was to have been joined on the bill by a Norfolk-based troupe of dancing sheep – surely an East End first.

"I'm not going to claim they are Torvill and Dean," says an organiser, insisting there will be no mint sauce in the venue. "But they are very good. We played them Pete's music and they liked it, so they will be a bit disappointed that he's not coming."

Born to be mild

Note to Pandora's Emerald sorority: George Clooney plans a motorbike holiday to Ireland this summer, unfazed by his accident in New Jersey in September. "I hear it rains," he said at the premiere of Leatherheads, his film with Renée Zellweger about a woeful American football team. "I got the right outfit for it." A coat? (He did not specify.)

The previous night, Clooney was a guest at a dinner for 40 women held by Harper's magazine. Cue mass hangovers. "I'm proud of that," he laughed on the red carpet. "It's because of that woman right there [pointing at Mariella Frostrup, who was also at the meal]. She is Satan."

Frostrup/Satan can't handle partying like she used to. Posed a reasonable question by a rival hack about upcoming engagements, she snapped: "You know that is the world's worst question and I never answer because I think 'read my CV'. My current projects are ongoing and marvellous." She wandered off before her head swelled too much to stop her entering the cinema.

pandora@independent.co.uk