At the beginning she gives a list of important people in the book and in which way they relate to her. There are family members, close friends etc. Then, at the bottom, is this (incidentally, Chez Rosenthal is her house, Zelma is her mum, and Amy is her daughter):

'Hugh Jackman: Adorable Aussie actor, played Curly in Oklahoma! - stayed one night chez Rosenthal in order to catch dawn Luton flight. Maureen, Zelma and Amy all up to see him off at 4:30a.m. in mascara and blusher.'

There's a whole chapter on Oklahoma! Here are the best bits - Hugh related and otherwise:

- 'Curly was a tall, beautifully proportioned, bright, sweet-faced Australian, Hugh Jackman.'

- 'When Hugh's glorious tenor rang out the first notes of 'Oh, What A Beautiful Morning' ('And he can sing, too,' was Trevor's [Nunn] comment), my heart started to do double time. Each new voice was revelatory but right. The chorus was rich and deep. Oy! We were on to something.'

On filming the video of Oklahoma!:

- 'I think we stopped once a day for lunch from a standing trolley. The rest of the hours that God made we danced inches off our frames. The video crew were knocked senseless by our stamina and we by their fortitude. Every shot had a deadline. Every deadline had a sell-by date. If it couldn't be got into the day, then the day had to have a hairline extension. Some of the dancers were rising to catch trains and lifts to Shepperton, then leaving for home at 11:30pm, dragging their make-up and wigs off in the car park. This job required a designated dormitory on the studio floor. We shot nine minutes a day. Most TV dramas shoot three. But still we cut no corners.'

On 'horsing around' on stage:

- 'Curly's horse tended to change names. 'Don't sell Dun, Curly,' became considerably funnier when the horse's name was 'Hurly Burly' and a complex and highspeed auction became a bowel churner when the starting price was eleven dollars instead of ten. A scene where Eller and four or five farm workers ran into the smokehouse after a gunshot was fired was even more dramatic when the gun failed to go off…'Pant, pant - who fired off that…er…who made that loud thudding noise?' And the presence in the smokehouse of one cowboy onlooker in full drag - with cherries on his hat - worked WONDERS for the progress of the plot.'

- 'The wings were crammed with wit during the romantic duo 'People Will Say We're In Love'. Fergus Logan and Nicola Keene were masterly in their attempts to corpse Curly on his line delivered into the wings 'Anybody out there? I want you all to know that Laurey Williams is my girl!' After the Kama Sutra repertoire had been trudged through, they stood Nicola on Fergus's shoulders with her skirt down to her boots. The next night she was two foot one with shoes on her knees and another night found her topless with vast plastic breasts. Hugh Jackman had a way of incorporating open-mouthed laughter into Curly's sheer pleasure in the actual moment envisioned by Rodgers & Hammerstein.

I, of course, took no part in this revelry. Except to drag a huge cardboard cow into the wings and spend every interval planning worse and worse tricks. On the last matinee I dressed Hugh's real-life wife, Deb, in my first-act costume and as he sang 'Don't Throw Bouquets At Me', she stood in the wings brandishing a rolling pin. Hugh was captivated. Just clapped his hands and laughed out loud. As we all piled on stage to congratulate him and Laurey, there was one tall, statuesque blonde in a lace 'fascinator' who got more than the average hug and kiss.

It always seemed to land on Hugh. We knew he could handle it. How he kept straight-faced and said 'And a little brown maverick is winkin' its eye' when faced with twelve mooning cowboys in the wings with dropped 'chaps' and G-strings I don't know.'

- '…back to the Lyceum Theatre where a tea party was being prepared for an American family who had bid several hundred pounds on the night of Comic Relief to have tea with the cast. We had all worn red noses for the walk down that night and I'd sent Hugh out into the audience to auction his body (I was prepared to go up to seven million myself) and Shuler [Jud Fry] to wrestle anyone to the ground for a given sum. We collected £2,000.'

- 'At one point Aunt Eller presented dungaree-clad Laurey with an organza dress, wrapped in a box, for the party that night, on account, 'You ain't got nothin' to wear 'cept yer mother's ol' weddin' dress.' She opened the box and it contained another pair of dungarees'.

On the last show:

- 'The Saturday night audience seemed to be made up of 2,000 people who'd been before and loved what they'd seen. Hugh had built up a following of excitable groupies and the ovations throughout were like the last night of Seinfeld.'

- 'The curtain calls went on for days. We brought on Trevor. I meant to thank him but words were out of the question. On this day we so missed being able to thank the dynamic 'Stro', stuck in the US, for making us so much more than we were. I clung onto Hugh, the best on-stage partner I'd ever known. I looked down into Row E on the best off-stage one, banging his hands together for the fifth time and the beam on the upturned mush of his daughter, and we just let the tears come.'

- 'Just an average week at the end of an average year. By the law of averages, I'll never see its like again.'

Next Chapter:

Just before a medical scan was due:

- 'I spoke to Aussie novelist Kathy Lette. She had agreed to speak at the Women OfTheYear lunch and we discussed the theme of human rights. Kathy had seen Oklahoma! and, like all of us, had fallen hopelessly in love with Australian actor Hugh Jackman and his wild, wonderful wife, Deb.
'They're coming to dinner tonight. Why don't you come?"
'Not my best day, Kathy. Thanks, anyway.''

When the scan proved she was okay:

- '…I'll probably bump into Kathy Lette and tell her I will come to her dinner party tonight now I've got something to celebrate. Which is exactly what happened. There she was, hurtling towards Richoux in pursuit of a cake for the dessert.

Well, we shared a moment there, and a coffee and, because she'd come out without her money, I shtipped her twenty quid for the cake. Later, many hoe-downs later, Hugh Jackman, Deb and I had a delicious after-show dinner with Kathy and her husband Geoff, and their guests, and at the end of the evening we entertained the company by chasing each other round the dining room, her trying to pin a £20 note on me, like at a Greek wedding, and me refusing it. The following night, on stage during the Oklahoma! auction scene, Curly the cowboy bid for Laurey's picnic basket with $30 and a Bank of England 1999 note of the value of £20 with a large 'Thank You' written on it from Ms K. Lette. I was too happy to protest.'

Later Chapter:

- 'The Oklahoma! reviews were marvellous and Hugh Jackman, who played Curly, was universally praised. But mostly for one thing. His GOOD LOOKS. He is good-looking. He is as good looking as anyone I've ever churned butter on stage next to, but his looks were the second to last thing that mattered in his portrayal of Curly, the curly-headed cowboy. Curly is the definitive workhouse donkey role in a musical. Never off stage, biggest songs, ballet number, fight number, a knackering, occasionally thankless role. "He was," said Julia McKenzie, who knows a thing or two about musicals, "quite simply the best leading man I've ever seen on stage."

It's not just talent. Everyone in the show had more than they needed in that department. It's talent. Plus. Plus what? Dunno. Joy, maybe - or soul. If I did know, I'd take a contract out on his life, have it bottled and sell it at every centre for media studies in the land.'

A: I was in England performing in Oklahoma! I had the flu and I felt terrible. The first song is Oh What A Beautiful Morning and halfway through the first verse, I realised I was singing my guts out and nothing was coming out. Then I had a coughing fit. I put my hand up, looked out at all the old ladies who'd probably travelled up from Bognor Regis and said, "I'm really sorry, I've wasted your time a bit, but we've got a great understudy. I don't want to spoil your afternoon." I walked off to complete silence. It was totally humiliating.