In brief: Branagh deserts Jude Law

Kenneth Branagh has pulled out of directing Jude Law (pictured) in his West End production of Hamlet next year at the Donmar Warehouse. The actor has been forced to withdraw due to commitments to a new film based on the Marvel comic book Thor ………. Veteran actor and womaniser Jack Nicholson says, at the age of 71, he is too old to chat up young girls. However, he adds: "Happily, when it comes to girls hitting on me, I'm not undernourished"…………. Michael Douglas's Gordon "Greed is Good" Gekko character is to return to Wall Street and confront the credit crisis in a new film called Money Never Sleeps ………… Nobel prize-winner Orhan Pamuk, tried in 2005 under Turkish law for criticising the state, used his opening address at the Frankfurt Book Fair to decry the "oppression" of Turkey's writers. Speaking alongside Turkish president Abdullah Gul, Pamuk deplored how "a century of banning and burning books, of throwing writers into prison or killing them" has made Turkish literature poorer ………..