Pedro's happy as his mother stages a return

The film-maker, whose last film, Volver, was a hit for Penelope Cruz, has been collaborating closely with the Old Vic and wants to observe some rehearsals.

He said he would "most certainly" be at the play's first night in September.

"I wrote this film, it came out of me, so of course I want to attend to its progress - but not to get in the way of what the writer Samuel Adamson is shaping it for, for the theatre," Pedro, an Academy Award winner, told me at a party in Cannes.

Pedro's film was about a mother whose son is killed in a car accident.

The mother, Manuela, tries to find the young man's father, who is a transvestite.

The play, like the film, will deal with women with emotional burdens and has echoes of the classic picture All About Eve and many Tennessee Williams dramas.

Lesley Manville is in final negotiations to play Manuela and will go into rehearsals once she has completed her role in the much anticipated BBC TV drama Cranford Chronicles.

The play will run at the Old Vic from September through till Christmas, and may then move to the West End.

"I've given a lot of freedom to the stage producers, but they seem to be keeping it very close to the original film," Pedro explained.

Kevin Spacey and Sam Mendes are involved in the project.

"It's in very good hands," Pedro added.

He also said - and this was revealed here last year - that work continues on a musical adaptation of another of his films, Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown, which will go to Broadway first and then London.

Meanwhile, Pedro told me he's writing a new film that should be ready to shoot around this time next year, with Ms Cruz as the female lead.