The 40-year-old will call the shots on a movie version of the acclaimed play Jump To Cow Heaven.

It will not be Kemp's first gangster film. In 1988 he starred with brother Martin - now playing EastEnders hardman Steve Owen - in The Krays. The Kemps played infamous twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray.

He later appeared as Whitney Houston's manager in the worldwide box office hit The Bodyguard in 1992.

Mitchell, on whose life the play is based, was sprung from Dartmoor Prison in 1966 by the Krays - the greatest stunt the twins ever pulled, according to Ronnie.

The play is set in a small basement flat in London's East End where Mitchell is in hiding with only a minder and a prostitute for company.

Gangster wraps

Kemp will be hoping his film emulates the success of Guy Ritchie's gangster movie, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, which starred soccer star Vinnie Jones.

Vinnie Jomes shot to fame in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Meanwhile Eurythmics star Dave Stewart has just finished directing Honest - a film starring three of the four members of the girl group All Saints, playing armed robbers in 1960s London.

Jump To Cow Heaven writer Gill Adams, a Hull University lecturer, said: "The play is very much a dangerous love story, which is what attracted Gary to it - that and the fact that is it based on the character of Frankie Mitchell who he became fascinated with during working on The Krays."

Mitchell spent nine years in Hull Prison, and Adams did much of her research by speaking to people who had met him during his stay.

Her play was an award-winner when it was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1997.

When it transferred to London it was seen by a friend of Kemp's, who passed a script on to him.

Kemp, who will be taking part in the Hull700 Literature Festival on Monday, said: "I really respect Gill's work and now that we have got a new working relationship I am very excited about coming to Hull.

"I am looking forward to working with her and developing Jump To Cow Heaven into a film."