Fresh from the revelation that teenage heartthrob Daniel Radcliffe will be giving us his Alan Strang in Thea Sharrock's West End production of Equus comes news that he's considering a shift from the theatrical to the poetic arts.
"One day in the future," he confided at a Teen Vogue event at the National Gallery, "I would like to focus more on writing poetry."
Which leaves us with a whole host of questions. Just how focused is Radcliffe on poetry already? What kind of poetry does he write? Who are his influences? When did he start writing? Where has it been published? Dammit, can we read some of it?
A phone call to his agent and an email to his publicist yield no further clues - though it's never too late to get in touch, Vanessa - so in the absence of any hard facts it's time to turn to the internet.
First stop Amazon - and a disappointing haul of only seven Harry Potter-related books, none of which is a collection of poetry by anyone at all, let alone young Daniel. The British Library integrated catalogue search comes back with a pamphlet written in 1716 by Daniel Defoe on the trial of James Radcliffe, Earl of Derwentwater. Even a search of the Poetry Library's archive - a database of 20th and 21st century UK poetry magazines from the collection - comes back with "no results found".
Google brings more bad news, in the form of an interview with the webmaster of danradcliffe.co.uk, Page Banfield, where the actor reveals that most of what he's written has been for school. "I'm interested in poetry," he continues, "and I love reading poetry." No mention of writing it.
But could this bad news really be good news in disguise? The interview dates from December 2003 - a whole three years ago, when little Daniel was only 14. Surely three years is long enough to turn from reader of poetry into practitioner? How long can it take to write a sonnet, after all?
Or maybe it's better this way. Maybe the idea of Harry Potter writing poetry is going to be better than any actual poetry ever could be.
What's it going to be? Densely-argued environmental laments in a rough-edged terza rima? Frothy love lyrics in a loping pentameter? Allusion-filled free verse epics in a dizzying variety of (possibly made up) languages about the subtle influences of the planets on a family of dreamers? Until Vanessa calls me back and lets me know where I can get hold of some, I can only continue to dream.
