ANNE FRANK - CONTROVERSY OVER ANNE FRANK MUSICAL

A musical based on the diary of ANNE FRANK is causing controversy in Spain - after her last living relative accused it of trivialising the Holocaust. Spanish-language production Anne Frank - A Song to Life, is due to open in the capital Madrid this month (Feb08). It has the backing of the Netherlands foundation that runs a museum in Frank's former Amsterdam home - where she and her family hid from the Nazis during World War II. But her descendant Buddy Elias - who owns the rights to her diary - is furious. The 82-year-old says, "How can I support this when my cousin Anne Frank, who died in a concentration camp, who had a terrible destiny, is used for a happy musical with singing and dancing and I don't know what else? "It is a musical about a Holocaust situation. It is not a subject to make a musical, an entertaining musical of it."