LONDON, AUG 8: Jerry Hall is proving as big a draw as her predecessor Kathleen Turner in advance theatre bookings for The Graduate, in which the middle-aged Texan model bares all.Producer Sacha Brooks said on Tuesday, "She has had the same advance levels as the first cast. We are shadowing that day by day. We are up to half a million pounds already and that is before the opening.''Hall (44) has taken over the role of Mrs Robinson from Hollywood star Kathleen Turner (45), who caused a sensation by briefly appearing nude as the voluptuous seductress.Ann Bancroft offered Dustin Hoffman just a tantalising glimpse of stocking in the original 1967-film. Turner and Hall have suffered no such inhibitions, dropping their towels in a dimly lit eight-second sequence.Hall's ex-husband Mick Jagger was on hand to lend moral support when the play launched a brief preview run, last week.He has promised to be there again for Tuesday's glitteringfirst night when theatre critics will get their first chance to appraise Hall's performance.Initial reaction was decidedly mixed from the previews. One tabloid said Hall was ``as wooden as a toothpick''.Brooks confessed to being shocked that newspapers chose to jump the gun and publish reviews while the production was still in previews.``We ignore their content. But yes - we were taken aback that they wanted to publish at that stage,'' he said.The production has been honed over the last week, he said.``The company has taken huge steps forward. There are new laughs and changed laughs. It has taken a week to learn. If Jerry Hall is nervous, she hides it very well,'' Brooks said.Brooks is undeterred because sales have been so good.``I don't think anything is critic-proof but with advance and word of mouth we aren't going away soon,'' he said.But every producer dreads the moment of truth, ``You always brace and you are always phlegmatic. You certainly do walk back from the newspaper shop very slowly on the morning after.''Brooks hopes to take the production to Broadway with Kathleen Turner as the star. He is bombarded every day with calls from around the world from companies eager to stage the play.``We are now talking to 24 countries but have hardly progressed to any deals. I get five or six calls a day. The most volume of interest is from Argentina, Spain, Germany, North America and Scandinavia,'' Brooks said.
