John le Carré's hit thriller Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is to hit the big screen. The author, whose real name is David Cornwall, is at work with the scriptwriter Peter Morgan on a film adaptation of the novel, first published in 1974 as the first instalment in a trilogy about cold war spies. To be produced by Working Title - the production company behind most of the British film industry's biggest hits - it will be the first feature-film version of the novel, which was made into a television series starring Alec Guinness in 1979. According to Morgan - whose other recent credits include the forthcoming films State of Play, Frost/Nixon and The Damned United - le Carré is full of sage advice: "'When you return to earlier work,' he cautioned, 'you feel two rather unpleasant emotions. One is God, this is awful, and the other is how can I ever write something as good ever again?'"
· Email your arts stories to arts.diary@theguardian.com
