If ever Michael Parkinson vacates the chat show host's chair there's a pretty decent contender to his throne nearby.

Maybe he wouldn't want it, but watching Wordsworth Trust director Robert Woof in the spotlight on the Thistle Hotel stage admirably conducting a question and answer session with his literary evening guest, it makes you wonder.

The focus of attention for my sortie to Grasmere was Frank Cottrell Boyce, the screenwriter responsible for, among others, the Wordsworth and Coleridge film Pandaemonium, and Anthony Wilson biopic 24-Hour Party People.

The first thing that strikes you about Frank is his warmth and humility.

He tells his audience that he prefers writing about real things rather than producing fiction - interviewing real people, as he did for his BAFTA-nominated Hilary and Jackie and 24-Hour Party People.

No doubt he has the talent for Hollywood, but so far his only real brush with Tinsel Town was to do a rewrite of the heist movie Gambit, which originally starred Michael Caine.

It went pear-shaped as Frank was unhappy with the way studio executives tried to meddle with his script: "I withdrew from it when I saw the reality of what was going on."

He prefers working with friends: "It's like playing in a band."

24-Hour Party People is as 'frank' as the person who penned it.

He pulls no punches.

As well as a rich blend of humour, drama and the frenetic and influential Manchester music scene including the punk era, and the legendary Happy Mondays and New Order, it drips with emotion.

Frank claims it was hard interviewing the relatives of people in the film as some had since died.

"It was raw and difficult."

He mentioned Debbie Curtis, the wife of the late Ian Curtis, Joy Division's singer, one of the main bands featured in the Michael Winterbottom directed flick.

He said she was " uncomfortable" about the film.

Moving on, Frank told about his encounter with a Canadian cartoon company boss who peeled Kinda chocolate eggs while she talked.

She had two stock reactions to an idea - either "blown away" or "I hate it already."

His only big-budget movie so far is The Claim, filmed in a snowy Nova Scotia and starring Natasha Kinski.

The money ebbed and flowed: "It was a nightmare to work on.

I wrote the script but couldn't follow what was going on.

It was originally about the coming of the railway, but we couldn't even have a train.

Everyone just got frostbite."

Finally, Frank shared his theory about how well a film goes down with the public: "I help run a cinema.

How much popcorn left on the floor is a good indicator.

If there's very little people have been captivated."

Meanwhile, at the trust next Tuesday night is rising star of the poetry world Jacob Polley.

The trust's poet-in-residence won the Arts Council of England's First Verse competition and a Radio 4 Poetry Weekend competition.

Jacob has also landed a Radio 4 commission and, as a result, the Carlisle-based wordsmith's Room can be heard over the airwaves on National Poetry Day.

As well as his published collection Salvage he is in demand as a reader at festivals all over the country.

Along with co-writer and director, Ian Fenton, he has just completed the film Flickerman and the Ivory-Skinned Woman.

On the Grasmere bill with Jacob is a former trust poet-in-residence W.N.

Herbert, who teaches creative writing at Lancaster University.

His latest volume, The Big Bumper Book of Troy, is being launched in October 2002.

He is also the editor of the poetry webzine Franks Casket, which he designed for the English Department at the University of Newcastle.

This features work by poets in the North of England including student, published and up-and-coming poets from the region.

Readings are held at the Prince of Wales Suite, Thistle Hotel (6.30pm).

Tickets £5 at the door £4 pre booked.

For further details contact 015394-35544.