The 17-year-old American has already sold more than 700,000 copies of Baby One More Time and looks set to become the youngest artist to break the million mark in Britain.

Spears will be the first act this year to stay at number one for more than a week, fending off competition from Blur's comeback single, which had been tipped for the top.

Blur's Tender, the band's first new material in two years and the debut single from their new album Thirteen, went in at number two. Whitney Houston's It's Not Right But It's Okay in at number three.

Chart expert Jason Legg said: "If Blur had chosen another week there would probably have been no competition, but they couldn't have accounted for the Britney factor."

Prince unveils Coward statue

Prince Edward will unveil a life-size statue of playwright and songwriter Noel Coward in New York today.

Noel Coward: Royal favourite

The Prince, who starred in a production of Coward's play Hay Fever at school, will reveal Angela Conner's work in the Gershwin Theatre's Hall of Fame to honor Coward's outstanding contribution to Broadway.

Noel Coward was a talented actor, playwright and film director and established his reputation as a playwright with The Vortex (1924), a controversial play about drug addiction.

His work captured the disillusionment of the post-First World War generation but his scathing wit led to his wartime song Don't Be Beastly to the Germans, a favourite of Winston Churchill's, being banned by the BBC.

Coward was also a firm favourite among the Royal Family and counted the Queen Mother, George VI and the late Lord Mountbatten among his friends.

The unveiling marks this year's centenary of Coward's birth.

Pavarotti appeals for tailor-made opera

Pavarotti: looking for a new opera

Opera star Luciano Pavarotti, who knows his classical repertoire inside out, says he wants someone to compose a new opera for him to sing.

"It has been my dream of 20 years or more that a pop composer would put himself together with a classical composer and make an opera," the tenor said backstage while rehearsing for with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra.

"No-one is writing music for someone like me today," the tenor explained, describing himself as "someone very romantic, someone who likes melody".

"Being a composer of opera today, one has to write dissonant music or one is considered antique. That is why I like to sing with pop singers," he said.

New music 'museum' opens in Sheffield

One of the centre's four interactive drums

The National Centre for Popular Music, a £15m interactive museum, opens today in Sheffield in a spectacular new stainless steel building.

The 'hands-on' museum with films, exhibitions, interactive attractions and a pioneering 3D sound auditorium is hoping for 400,000 visitors a year.

Organisers say the idea is for music fans to 'have a go' on a DJ's mixing desk, to learn how to blow a trumpet, or to design an album cover.

The centre can commission new pieces of music and film, and is inviting composers to write for one of its exhibition spaces.

Willis set to star in new crime comedy

Bruce Willis is co-producing The Full Nine Yards with his brother

Action man Bruce Willis is set to star in a new crime comedy, The Full Nine Yards, made by his own production company, Flying Heart Films.

The $30m (£18.7m) project, co-produced by Bruce's brother David, is one of several films Willis is making under his own steam.

In The Full Nine Yards, Willis plays a mobster who goes undercover in a witness protection scheme but comes unstuck due to his nosy neighbours.

Dillon set to play gigolo in new movie

Heart-throb Matt Dillon is set to play a prostitute in a new fact-based drama called Pony Rides.

Dillon, whose recent movies include smash-hit There's Something About Mary, plays a young man trained to take over the family business but who turns to the sex trade to make his fortune.

To be directed by Australian Bruce Beresford, the film's screenplay was adapted by John Carlen from his semi-autobiographical novel.

Day gets set for West End role

Darren Day takes to the West End stage as Danny in Grease from Monday night.

The Holiday and You Bet star is taking over the lead role in the smash hit musical from Alex Bourne.

The show has a box office advance of £1m and is booking until December 18.

It has run since 1993 and transferred to the Cambridge Theatre in 1996.

Previous cast members include Craig McLachlan, Debbie Gibson, Shane Richie, Samantha Janus, and Luke Goss.

Janis Joplin bio-pic "back on track"

The long-awaited film biography of tragic singer Janis Joplin is back on track with Brittany Murphy now signed to play the raspy-voiced blues singer.

Rocker Melissa Etheridge was at one point reported to have accepted the part of Joplin, the Texas-born singer who died aged 27 in 1970, but she dropped out of the project.