Working Title's take on John Le Carre's classic spy tale has just been given one hell of a boost by its new director: Tomas Alfredson. Yes, he of Let the Right One In, that beautiful piece of Swedish fanged poetry, a filmmaker of true flair and craft. How could this be more exciting? Well, he's directing a screenplay written by my new personal hero, Peter Morgan - we all know who he is, man of The Queen, Last King of Scotland and Bond's next outing.

This is Alfredson's first English language film - the tricky second-album for foreign directors - but Morgan's skilled scripting should offer substantial support. Set in Cold War London, Tinker Tailor, Soldier, Spy sees MI6 agent George Smiley come out of retirement to uncover the Russian mole inside British Intelligence.

Smart and sophisticated, it got a famous reworking by the BBC in the 1970s, starring Alec Guinness as Smiley and Patrick Stewart as the mysterious mole, Karla. They even reprised the roles for Smiley's People (above), which eventually became part of a trilogy of Karla adaptations. The first of the stories, Tinker, Tailor, was the best. Knocking Le Carre's spinning, twisting thriller into a couple of hours (as opposed to 7 parts) is one hell of a challenge. But this writer-director duo should easily be up to it.