Woody looks to London

Match Point, however, also tackles a very specific aspect of British society - the privilege and sense of entitlement possessed by the upper classes. In the film, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers plays a former tennis pro turned coach new to London who inveigles his way into the uppercrust Hewett family.

He coaches the son, Tom (Matthew Goode), starts dating his sister, Chloe (Emily Mortimer), and worms his way into the affections of the parents (Brian Cox and Penelope Wilton).

His only mistake is that he has an insatiable desire to bed Tom's fiancée, a voluptuous American actress wannabe called Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson). Their illicit affair leads to deceit and murder.

"The class structure is more overt in England, but it exists clearly in America as well, so again the changes had to be cosmetic," says Allen.

"All I had to do was write the best I could. I changed it to Anglicise it. Then I had some English people read it and tell me where I had gone wrong - most of my mistakes were cosmetic.

"They would say that the characters wouldn't go to this restaurant or they'd do this on the weekend or he'd drive this kind of car and not that kind. Sometimes the actors would say to me that they would never say this. They would say 'dodgy', not 'dicey'.

"It was not that difficult a thing," he adds, in that deadpan tone for which he is so renowned. "It would have been more difficult if I had to switch to, you know, a more exotic city, or if I was suddenly making the film in Mozambique."

His tone only lifts when he talks rapturously about the experience of shooting in London. Besides the "cool and grey" climate - "good for the photography" - it was, he says, "the most graceful thing. I had no problems at all.

"We hired good production people. The crews were as nice as could be. The city was completely co-operative. That's why I returned this year to make another film, because, you know, the circumstances on Match Point were so pleasurable."

Ironically, Allen's star in both Match Point and Scoop is Johansson, a New York native and the epitome of American movie-star glamour. She stepped in at the 11th hour as Nola, who originally was to be played by Kate Winslet.

"Because of the raising of the money and the tax structure, I was under the impression that we had to use all English actors," says Allen, referring to
the predominance of English elements required in order to tap into certain UK tax funds.

"As it turned out, we had fulfilled our obligation to use a sufficient number of English crew and cast, so when Kate Winslet called to back out because she was exhausted and wasn't spending enough time with her child, I could recast with an American actress."

Allen had seen Lost in Translation and Ghost World and - by now, he's positively gushing - he thought Johansson was "beautiful, sexy, a wonderful actress, completely interesting on screen. I felt, like many people, that she was a new legitimate, authentic movie star who had burst onto the screen and had real depth. I sent her the script on a Friday night and by Sunday she was in."

Ask another of his Match Point stars, the British Emily Mortimer, and she will tell you that Allen doesn't socialise with his cast, barely forging personal relationships with any of them.

"I am not a great social person," Allen admits. "I don't like to meet people and it's a very uncomfortable thing when an actor or actress comes in [to audition], so I usually cast from films and videos.

"I do like to take one live look at them just to make sure they are what I think they are and so I tell them that I'm only going to say hello to them and not to feel that the brevity of the meeting reflects anything. Then they come in and I always say hello, and they go away. I have already seen their work and I have a good idea of what they can do."

Johansson might be different. The gregarious 21-year-old has certainly won a place in Allen's heart, and the lead role in Scoop, in which she plays an American reporter on a college newspaper who starts investigating a murder story.

Hugh Jackman plays "a gorgeous aristocrat who falls for Scarlett", Allen himself plays "a cheap, low-grade small-time Vaudeville magician" and Ian McShane plays a journalist. "It's meant to be funny," he says. "I intended it to be funny and Scarlett is very funny in it."

Maybe Johansson is the new Allen muse in the same way that Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow have been in the past. But there is no hint of romance in the new film-maker/ actress rapport as there was with Keaton and Farrow. Indeed, Allen talks freely about Soon-Yi, Farrow's adopted daughter to whom he has been married for eight years. She is mother to his two young adopted children, Bechet Dumaine and Manzie Tio.

"They are five-and-a-half and six-and-a-half," he says. "Their mother does more with them, but I am very, very close with them and play with them a lot. They are two sweet little kids. I mean, before I came over here today we played checkers, and I won relentlessly against one of my daughters. I take them to school, I make their breakfast, I read to them - they enjoy that and it gives me pleasure."

He paints a curious domestic scene - the 70-year-old master film-maker, his 35-year-old wife and their two girls. "My wife is amazing with them - they are females and empathise with her more.

They like to see her dress and put on her jewellery while I'm in the other room practising my clarinet. It's been a great experience for everybody, I think. I mean, I think I'm extremely good at fathering. It comes naturally to me."

Where Allen will go next in his career is anybody's guess. He has his third London movie to shoot. Then, he might make a film in Barcelona. But he also talks about getting older.

"There's no advantage to getting older," he says plaintively. "I have been very lucky so far and I still have a certain amount of energy, but I am a little hard of hearing and, you know, gradually you disintegrate. You don't suddenly get wise and accept the world for what it is and suddenly realise what love is. None of that happens. Your bones ache more is what happens."

He looks down sadly. "That's around the corner for me and, you know, I wish it wasn't."

Match Point opens on 6 January. The first of a two-part documentary, Woody Allen - the Cabaret Years, is on Radio 4 tonight at 6.30pm.