Here come the Pat Pack

Irish actor Brendan Gleeson was full of pre-St Patrick's Day cheer when I met him in London last week. The star of In Bruges, Harry Potter and The General is about to start work on his directing debut, an adaptation of Flann O'Brien's novel At Swim-Two-Birds, for which he has also written the screenplay. The film will star Gleeson himself, Cillian Murphy and Gabriel Byrne, all of whom also appear in Irish crime caper Perrier's Bounty, released later this week. They'll be joined by Colin Farrell among many others, including Gleeson's son Domhnall. In Dublin, they're proudly dubbing it "the Pat Pack". Gleeson has been working on O'Brien's 1939 story for years, a tale of a young drunk playwright who thinks he sees his characters coming to life. "The nerve of me," says Brendan. "It's one of the classics, a mad, mayhem book and I've been trying to get it done for six years. It's going to be a big one. There's massive pressure but it's where I live and I love what's at the heart of it, so I can't wait to get on with it." I wonder, of the many directors he's worked with, who he thinks he might direct like? "Ha," he says: "Like nobody on earth, that's for sure." Filming is due to begin in Ireland in September. As Cillian Murphy told me: "It's a real tribute to Brendan – he'll be a fantastic director and he's got so much goodwill behind him that all these people want to drop everything to work with him on such challenging material. It's chaotic stuff, but Brendan will bring it to life."

Cuban heels

Director Andrew Lang took a novel route to film success. He went to film school in Havana. The result is his debut documentary, Sons of Cuba (starring Cristian Martinez, right), made over three years. "The school has a proud tradition," he told me. "They have very few international slots and I somehow got one and it was the most fascinating time of my life." The film is out this week.

This is television

Shane Meadows has begun work on a four-part TV update of his masterpiece film This Is England. Writer Jack Thorne, from Skins and this week's The Scouting Book for Boys, wouldn't reveal much about the Channel 4 project, but he did tell me the action picks up four years after the end of the film. Thomas Turgoose is back, as are Andrew Shim, the girls (yes, including Smelly) and Joe Gilgun as charming, nice skinhead Woody. There's a possible return for Stephen Graham's Combo, too. Meadows is directing parts three and four himself, handing over duties on the first two instalments to The Scouting Book's director, Tom Harper. Thorne, meanwhile, is working on a movie version of Skins that will unite all the casts of the groundbreaking TV show, including – whisper it – Nicholas Hoult.