By Debbie McGoldrick

IS Bono ready for the silver screen? Maybe. Reports say that he and Cate Blanchett are up for parts in the movie version of the popular play Blood Brothers, which will be directed by Alan Parker of The Commitments and Evita fame.

Top tier talent will be required, says Parker, if the project is to succeed. “Our ambitions for it might be greater than the support we can get financially right now,” he says of the Blood Brothers, which has been a hit on London’s West End for 20 years. Parker did acknowledge that Bono’s name has been bandied about. No word from the U2 star about the matter, though . . .

LOOKS like Jonathan Rhys Meyers can count on a renewal for The Tudors, his new series about King Henry VIII which debuted on Showtime a couple of Sundays ago. The show registered some pretty nifty Nielsen ratings, as Showtime attracted 1.3 million viewers on Sunday, April 1, the most since the Kirstie Alley series Fat Actress made its bow two years ago. The delighted network also announced that the show outperformed the “inaugural linear screenings” whatever that means for its most popular show, Weeds. In the meantime, perhaps the Dublin-born Golden Globe winner should exercise a bit more modesty in public. The New York Post reported last week that JRM and his girlfriend were publicly slobbering all over each other in a nightclub, and of course the story has gone viral all over the Internet. Gross! . . .

PRINCE William’s girlfriend Kate Middleton made her first trip to Dublin last week to support an artist pal who was having an exhibition in the city. Kate either flew over to Ireland on a private jet with her mother and a bunch of friends, or arrived via a scheduled flight on Aer Lingus, depending on which report you believe. She did a good job of keeping her lip zipped, despite loads of media at the opening.