Ralph Fiennes is in negotiations to play bullying headmistress Agatha Trunchbull in a film version of Matilda the Musical.

It is based on Roald Dahl's novel about a super-bright schoolgirl with magical powers who fights her ill-treatment at home and school.

The movie will be directed by Matthew Warchus, who created the original Royal Shakespeare Company production at Stratford-upon-Avon a decade ago with Dennis Kelly, who adapted Dahl's 1988 book, and Tim Minchin, who wrote the songs.

The RSC executive producer Andre Ptaszynski and a team of investors transferred Matilda to the Cambridge Theatre in 2011, where it remains.

Ralph Fiennes is in negotiations to play bullying headmistress Agatha Trunchbull in a film version of Matilda the Musical, writes BAZ BAMIGBOYE

Fiennes has never been in a musical before, though he was courted a few years ago to play Henry Higgins in a now- iced new film version of My Fair Lady.

He displayed evidence of musical chops in the film Bernard And Doris, in which he did a duet with Susan Sarandon of Peggy Lee's I Love the Way You're Breaking My Heart.

And in Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash, he did some freestyle moves to The Rolling Stones number, Emotional Rescue.

The musical is based on Roald Dahl's novel about a super-bright schoolgirl with magical powers who fights her ill-treatment at home and school, writes BAZ BAMIGBOYE. Pictured: Bullying headmistress Agatha Trunchbull in the 1996 film

He knows about movement from his time at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, plus he studied rudimentary ballet for his film The White Crow, about Rudolf Nureyev. But as Bertie Carvel — who originated the Trunchbull role brilliantly in the UK and on Broadway — proved, the part requires a great actor to interpret it.

Fiennes has never been in a musical before, though he was courted a few years ago to play Henry Higgins in a now- iced new film version of My Fair Lady, writes BAZ BAMIGBOYE. Pictured: Miss Trunchbull in Matilda the Musical

Warchus and his collaborators are also rumoured to be seeking La La Land Oscar winner Emma Stone's services to play Miss Honey, the kind-hearted teacher who becomes Matilda's mentor.

Casting directors announced a search two weeks ago to find a youngster, no taller than four foot three inches, to play the title role.

Fiennes and Warchus have collaborated before — on God Of Carnage at the Gielgud and The Master Builder at the Old Vic. The sadistic Miss Trunchbull, a national level hammer thrower, thinks all her pupils are rotten — her school's motto is Bambinatum Est Magitum (Children Are Maggots) — and has been known to pick up and hurl them great distances when enraged.

Filming begins on the Sony and Netflix co-production in the late summer.

The Hollywood Reporter noted that the film would have a full cinema release in the UK but it will be streamed on Netflix elsewhere.

Fiennes will be seen in several movies this year.

He's reprising his role as M in the new 007 picture No Time To Die, which is released here on April 2, and will also appear in Matthew Vaughn's WWI feature The King's Man and Simon Stone's The Dig.

Puppet tiger comes alive

Hiran Abeysekera knew his co-star in Life Of Pi, a 450lb Bengal tiger by the name of Richard Parker, was not real — but I wasn't so sure!

He worked closely with the three actors who manipulated the life-size beast (right) created in the sculpture workshop of puppet designers Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell.

Abeysekera told me the trio 'put breath into this tiger puppet to give it life . . . it's quite electric'.

Hiran Abeysekera knew his co-star in Life Of Pi, a 450lb Bengal tiger by the name of Richard Parker, was not real — but I wasn't so sure! writes BAZ BAMIGBOYE

I was so immersed in the show that I believed everything I saw. For me, that tiger was real. Abeysekera played Pi last year in Lolita Chakrabarti's adaptation of Yann Martel's Booker prize-winning novel at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. It was a mesmerising, award-winning hit.

Director Max Webster and producer Simon Friend have signed him, along with most of the Sheffield company — including Raj Ghatak, Fred Davis and Mina Anwar — and added Alex Chang for Pi's transfer to Wyndham's Theatre from June 28.

As friendly as Mr Parker's handlers were, Abeysekera said he came away from the production with an understanding of just how 'vicious' tigers could be.

Before returning for a new slice of Pi, he heads to Paris to do a theatrical workshop of The Tempest with celebrated director Peter Brook.

Sam's men prepare for award raid

George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman, lance-corporals Schofield and Blake, who risk everything to go on a dangerous mission in the Sam Mendes film 1917, will join screen comrades Andrew Scott and Mark Strong at Sunday night's Baftas.

The reunion comes as 1917, which Mendes wrote with Krysty Wilson-Cairns, has taken more than £28 million at the UK box office — and more than $100 million in the U.S.

George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman, lance-corporals Schofield and Blake, who risk everything to go on a dangerous mission in the Sam Mendes film 1917, will join screen comrades Andrew Scott and Mark Strong at Sunday night's Baftas, writes BAZ BAMIGBOYE

It's the front-runner at the Baftas and the following weekend's Academy Awards. But Joker, Parasite, Once Upon A Time . . . In Hollywood and The Irishman are moving heaven and earth to overtake it in the Oscars race.

The Irishman is screening tomorrow in London for Oscars voters . . . with its headline stars Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in attendance.

But my hunch is it's likely to be 1917's year. I agree with something MacKay said when we chatted recently.

He explained: 'There's something in the reserve of the period. I understood that as brittleness. But here I saw it as something bigger — an English quality.

'A quality about the lengths that humans can go to, and the ways you can surpass yourselves in the service of something bigger.'

There are parties all over the Bafta weekend, starting with the Hollywood Academy throwing a cocktail bash for nominees tonight.

Bafta is holding a splashy party at Kensington Palace tomorrow for nominees, while Charles Finch teams up with Chanel for his annual star-studded pre- Bafta dinner in Mayfair. And there are all manner of private soirees.

On Sunday there are parties at Grosvenor House, Soho House — and I imagine everyone will pitch up at the late-night Netflix party in Marylebone.