The Wordsworth Trust Tuesday night poetry readings are relaxed affairs when some of the top names of the literary world wax lyrical in Grasmere.

No doubt their visit to Dove Cottage is due, in no small measure, to the persuasive charm of director Robert Woof.

The trust's latest high profile visitor was Lee Hall, he of Billy Elliot fame.

Lee's writing skills were first noticed by Robert in Newcastle, barely out of short trousers and long before the young Geordie dramatist had radio and theatre successes with Spoonface Steinberg and Cooking with Elvis.

Now, though, Lee is bordering on a household name since penning the screenplay for feelgood-film Billy Elliot.

Lee's Grasmere reading was across the A591, at the Thistle Hotel.

In the first half he read the interview between the angel and Jimmy, from his early radio play, Jimmy Spud.

He moved on to The Hum, a recent and extremely clever script he has written about marriage.

As well as hooking the audience, it highlighted the detailed stage directions in his scripts.

He also gave the audience a glimpse of his latest screenplay, Yuri Gagarin, the Soviet cosmonaut who in 1961 became the first man in space.

A Forest Gump type figure, said Lee: "I spent a year researching this.

It's about Russian history really.

Yuri went from anonymous steel worker to the most famous man in the world, and the first proletarian hero."

After the interval, the spotlight was on Billy Elliot.

Drawn from his own childhood experiences (although he was a budding writer, and Billy a dancer) he showed the rough cut of the first four minutes where Billy jumps on the trampoline - at £25,000 the most expensive sequence of the Oscar-nominated film.

Lee said he was involved in the whole production through to the final edit.

"Normally they want you off," he smiled.

He was delighted with its success but unhappy with the way the opening was handled - there were 20 different beginnings.

And, overall, he wrote ten drafts of the complete script before the final offering.

He added: "Script writing is one per cent inspiration, 99 per cent rewrites.

"Working on a film is about relationships.

Nobody has full control.

As a writer you don't have power, only influence."

Lee studied literature at Cambridge and has produced a wide variety of work.

In theatre, his adaptation of Brecht's Mr Puntila is one example.

The Student Prince for television, starring Robson Green, is another.

And his favourite type of drama is medieval - although he'd love to write a Greek tragedy.

He likes to write most about death and the tragic-comic experience.

Later he told me writing is trial and error: "Just do it."

l The Wordsworth Trust Summer Readings series continues on Tuesday evenings (6pm) until October 23.

Next Tuesday (August 7) is Kate Clanchy, past winner of both the Forward Prize and Somerset Maugham Award, followed the week after (August 14) by Colette Bryce and John Stammers.

Further details on 015394-35544.