Leigh's mystery sell-out

Every single available ticket for a new play at the National Theatre has been sold even though no one - except for its cast and director - has the faintest clue what it is about.

More than 16,000 theatre-goers have spent between £10 and £27 for tickets to the mysterious new play, which opens next month but has yet to be given a name.

This runaway success is not based on any big-name actors - there aren't any - but solely on the reputation of the man who has created it: Mike Leigh.

The news that acclaimed writer and director Leigh, 62, has been commissioned to write his first play for the National was enough to ensure brisk business at the box office. Oscar-nominated Leigh is famous for the improvisational technique he has used to create his films such as Vera Drake and plays including Abigail's Party.

True to form, Leigh and his eight cast members have spent the past four months rehearsing and developing the work at a secret location in the capital.

A National Theatre spokeswoman said: "We are not keeping anything back, it is just that we know nothing. We are as much in the dark as everybody else.

"Details of the plot are known only to those directly involved in the rehearsal process."

The work is going by the name "A New Play By Mike Leigh", but it will have to be given a proper title soon so that programmes can be printed in time for the first preview performance on 8 September.

There are only two clues as to what the subject of the play might be. The first came from Miriam Margolyes who, after unsuccessfully auditioning for the play, told the Jewish Chronicle that it was "about being Jewish".

That could be a carefully crafted bluff, however. The other hint is the image that has been selected for the National's publicity poster: a sole, bedraggled palm tree surrounded by sand dunes.

That could suggest another drama inspired by the war in Iraq, following David Hare's Stuff Happens and National artistic director Nicholas Hytner's highly politicised production of Henry V.