Felicity Kendal is to take over Dame Diana Rigg's role in Charlotte Jones's play Humble Boy when it transfers from the Cottesloe at the National Theatre to the West End in mid-January.

The venue is yet to be confirmed, as is the rest of the cast, with the crucial exception of Simon Russell Beale, who will continue to play a mother-dominated character, with more than a shade of his previous role at the National, where he starred in Hamlet.

Felicity Kendal was last in the West End in the Noel Coward play Fallen Angels, where she co-starred with Frances de la Tour, and which closed in April this year. She is an accomplished player of comedy and has starred in several Tom Stoppard plays, including Indian Ink at the Aldwych: the play was set in India, where Miss Kendal grew up in a family of touring Shakespearean players. The setting of Humbleboy is firmly English, however, in a highly-praised set by Tim Hately.

National Theatre Box Office: 020 7452 3000.

—by Paul Webb Theatrenow