America spawned Michael Moore, but I hear that Britain is about to get a home-grown version. Peter Moore, the former Channel 4 commissioning editor and brains behind TV shows as diverse as the current-affairs Cutting Edge strand and Jamie's School Dinners, is starting work on a feature documentary with the working title 57 Ways to Kill Castro. It will be a polemical examination of the various attempts on the life of the Cuban leader (pictured right) by the American military and secret service. Apparently our Mr Moore got the idea chatting to locals on a recent holiday to Cuba, and has big-money backers behind him. He might be well advised to begin preparing his Oscar speech.

Zadie Smith (pictured below) has further reason to celebrate after winning the Orange Prize for her novel On Beauty. The rights to the book, a modern-day version of Howards End set in multiracial America, are close to being sold to Scott Rudin, the Hollywood mogul responsible for films such as The Hours, The Truman Show and I Heart Huckabees. Rudin also has a film version of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections in the pipeline, with David Hare rumoured to be penning the screenplay. So, a big-budget production of Smith's tome looks very likely in the not-too-distant future.

I hear that David Soul's memoirs, published later this year by Transworld, will contain an intriguing anecdote about how the mop-headed Starsky and Hutch actor was questioned by the US police with regard to the grisly murder of Sharon Tate by the Manson "family" in 1969. He had nothing to do with it, of course - Tate's husband, Roman Polanski, subsequently admitted that he had suspected various friends and associates, his paranoia subsiding only when the real killers were arrested.

Nevertheless, it seemed an interesting and quirky story, so I called Soul up to seek clarification. He practically bit my head off. Perhaps he was angry that the story had leaked out prior to the juicy tale being serialised by a newspaper for top dollar. Well, the book, which is entitled The Covered Man, will be out in September, so we shall see.

How far can Ben Elton's popularity fall? As if it's not bad enough being sent to Room 101 by the fearsomely Botoxed Anne Robinson for "hypocrisy", the radical-comic-turned- Lloyd-Webber-wordsmith is to be immortalised on stage. Scheduled to première at the Gilded Balloon during this year's Edinburgh Festival is a show entitled West Side Tory: Ben Elton - the musical. It's a one-man "spectacle-acular", and its main marketing point is that it is "not written, endorsed, or in any way featuring the real Ben Elton" (sic).

Shocking news reaches me from BBC Wales. Can it be true that the great Russell T Davies may soon make his departure from Doctor Who? The dynamic writer, whose previous credits include the Channel 4 series Queer as Folk, has been widely credited for the sci-fi show's remarkable resurrection. But I understand that he could be preparing to hand over the baton (or should that be the Sonic Screwdriver?) to someone else.

bendowell@btinternet.com

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