Granada TV's Beckham For Real was to have been guaranteed a primetime slot on ITV and transmission in the US.

The Daily Telegraph says the newlyweds demanded to hire or fire staff, the right to censor content, a �50,000 fee and a cut of all the programme's profits.

Carlton TV has confirmed it is in talks to make the documentary instead.

The couple picked up a �1m cheque for exclusive rights to the photos of their lavish wedding last month.

US city makes $100,000 Whitney claim

Singer Whitney Houston is being asked to reimburse the city of Concord, California, for pulling out of a show there at the last minute.

She bowed out of a performance at the publicly-owned Concord Pavilion on 1 August claiming to be ill. Now the city is demanding $100,000 (�62,500) compensation.

The cancellation came just 15 minutes before the curtain was set to rise.

Houston has cancelled a string of dates this summer citing throat problems and a "bronchitis situation".

Actor Martin Lawrence 'critical'

Eddie Murphy's co-star in his new film Life is in a critical state after collapsing in the heat whilst jogging near his home at the weekend.

Martin Lawrence, 34, who also starred with Murphy in the film Boomerang, was rushed to hospital in LA in a coma and with a temperature of 107 Fahrenheit.

After three days in a coma, the star has regained consciousness. It was thought that the US actor was stepping up his exercise regime so he would be fit for a new movie role.

Tax probe ends for Domingo

Opera star Placido Domingo will no longer be included in a German probe into tax evasion during a Three Tenors tour, after paying Mannheim authorities an undisclosed sum.

Domingo, along with Luciano Pavarotti and Jose Carreras, was named as a suspect in an investigation of German concert promoter Matthias Hoffmann.

Hoffmann was charged with funnelling funds for himself and the singers out of Germany. He was convicted of evading $6m (�3.75m) in taxes last year and sentenced to six years in prison.

Pavarotti and Carreras remain under investigation.

Producer sabotages Von Trier film

Danish film-maker Lars Von Trier has demanded that his latest movie The Idiots be withdrawn from US cinemas.

The film was supposedly made according to "Dogme" principles which forbid use of artificial lighting or effects.

But executive producer Aalbeck Jensen has revealed certain scenes were lit artificially. "I plead guilty. I have been unfaithful to Lars," he said.

Award-winning Von Trier, who directed Emily Watson in Breaking the Waves, says it was "an unforgivable transgression".

GCSE success for Rollason's daughter

Nikki Rollason, daughter of sports presenter Helen who died of cancer earlier this month, has scored 10 A-grades at GCSE.

It was her mother's dearest wish to live long enough to see Nikki get her results, but tragically she died two weeks before they were published.

Nikki, 16, scored six top A* grades, four A grades, and one B grade. Her father said the family was extremely pleased, and added: "I know that her mother would be proud of her."

Alda dons gown again for ER

Former M*A*S*H star Alan Alda is back in the operating room filming a five-episode stint on ER.

Alda shot to fame as wise-cracking Captain 'Hawkeye' Pierce in the legendary comedy-drama about a mobile army surgery unit, set in the Korean War.

Now the actor is portraying a legendary pioneering surgeon but he is finding times have changed. "I keep starting to call instruments by their old-fashioned names," he says.