Cooper, who gained theatrical immortality as the Swan in Matthew Bourne's epic reworking of Swan Lake, the Tchaikovsky ballet, is to return to the London stage this summer, opening in On Your Toes at the Royal Festival Hall Aug. 7.

He will be accompanied, in a dream-team billing, with his wife, Sarah Wildor. She, like him, is an ex-star of the Royal Ballet, and was until May 10, one of the leads in Susan Stroman's Contact. They will be joined by another Royal Ballet star, Irek Mukhamedov.

On Your Toes has music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart and a book by Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart and George Abbott, the legendary American theatre director. It includes the ballet sequence Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, but it also gives Adam Cooper the opportunity to break into commercial musical theatre, something he has long wanted to do.

On Your Toes was last seen in London at the Palace Theatre in 1984, where it starred Natalia Makarova, the ballerina who recently choreographed the Royal Ballet's new production of The Sleeping Beauty.