Kenneth Branagh hires Kate Winslet for potato film

Branagh's Hamlet adaption in 1996 was nominated for four Oscars

Actress Kate Winslet is to work with Kenneth Branagh for the first time since they made Hamlet in 1996, it has been reported.

Winslet will star in the director's latest film, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, according to industry newspaper Variety.

In a recent interview, Branagh described the project as "a beautiful romance, very touching and uplifting."

Winslet previously played Ophelia in the thespian's adaptation of Hamlet.

The movie, which starred Branagh in the title role, and also featured Dame Judi Dench and Billy Crystal, was nominated for four Academy Awards.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society will be based on the best-selling 2008 book by Mary Ann Shaffer and her niece Annie Barrows, who helped her finish the book after she became terminally ill.

The writer eventually died aged 74, a few months before the novel was published.

Set after World War II, the story is about a magazine columnist, Juliet Ashton, who learns how Guernsey islanders created a book group during the war to outwit their German occupiers.

After exchanging letters with a pig farmer who uncovers evidence of the book club in the modern day, Ashton becomes so captivated by the story she travels to Guernsey, where she delves deeper into the lives of the islanders and experiences things that change her life forever.