Emmerdale's Mandy to bow out

Emmerdale star Lisa Riley, who plays Mandy Dingle in the ITV soap, is leaving the show after five years.

She will film her final scenes in the rural drama this autumn, but her character will not be killed her off in case she wants to return.

An Emmerdale spokesman would not reveal details of the plot, but admitted: "It's going to be quite dramatic and quite a tearjerker."

Riley also presents camcorder show You've Been Framed on ITV.

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Make-up artist suing Lloyd Webber

A makeup artist on the musical Cats has got the go-ahead from a US federal court to sue Andrew Lloyd Webber for allegedly violating her copyright.

Candace Anne Carell, who joined the show in 1982 on $200 (£130) a week, said those connected with Cats profited from her designs in commercial products.

A judge said Lloyd Webber owned the business that licensed many of the designs and much of his fortune may have been derived from the musical.

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Right time for Clooney

Hollywood heart-throb George Clooney is teaming up with Steven Soderbergh to produce a time-travel drama about a Vietnam vet framed for murder.

In The Jacket, a soldier wrongly jailed for murder learns to travel in time to escape the pain of incarceration - and, more importantly, to discover who framed him.

Clooney and Soderbergh, who last worked together on the thriller Out Of Sight, are also producing Rat Pack comedy Ocean's Eleven, due to start shooting next year.

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Games company set to earn its corn

A UK company is to produce two computer games featuring characters from Chicken Run, the new animated movie by Oscar-winning director Nick Park.

Absolute Studios of Glasgow previously won a Bafta for its work with characters such as Wallace and and Gromit, the Teletubbies and Noddy.

The games will go on sale to tie in with the film's UK release this Friday.

Chicken Run went to number two in the US box office charts when it opened there last weekend.

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Douglas brushing up on new role

Hollywood heavyweight Michael Douglas has teamed up with MGM to produce and star in a film based on one of the 20th Century's biggest art-fraud scandals.

Douglas will play John Drewe, a charismatic con artist who, in 1986, discovered talented forger John Myatt.

Together the two produced 200 paintings that fooled the experts and were sold for large sums all over the world.

Drewe is currently serving a six-year sentence for his part in the scam.

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Theatre pioneer receives welcome broadside

A theatrical director who has helped to broaden audiences for the classics by performing them in unusual locations has scooped the UK's most prestigious arts prize.

Barrie Rutter, founder of the Northern Broadsides theatre company, received the £100,000 prize and the title of Creative Briton 2000 in London.

Rutter's company, based in a former carpet factory in Halifax, West Yorkshire, was nominated by figures including Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.

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Wahlberg goes ape for new movies

Mark Wahlberg has signed a two-picture deal to star in an update of the 1960s cult classic Planet Of The Apes, along with a sequel.

The new film, directed by Tim Burton, is said to be neither a sequel nor a remake, but rather a "re-imagining" of the five original Apes films made between 1968 and 1973.

Wahlberg, best known for roles in Three Kings and Boogie Nights, also stars in the blockbuster Perfect Storm, which is released in the US this week.

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Ramsay named Chef of the Year

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has been named Chef of the Year at the catering industry's version of the Oscars.

Ramsay, as well known for his fiery temper as his top cuisine, was presented with the Catey award at a ceremony in London.

Judges of the event commended the former Glasgow Rangers footballer for the "outstanding quality of his cooking".

They said of Ramsay, whose restaurant is in Chelsea, London: "His food is vibrant, the flavour of the moment, and is executed to the very highest level."