Rachael follows in Diana's footsteps

Jim Broadbent, Sir Michael Gambon and Rachael Stirling are set to star in the National Theatre's 2005 season, unveiled today.

The season also includes new writing by playwrights as diverse as Mike Leigh and Stephen Knight, the man who created Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

The first headline show of the year will be Henry IV parts I and II, directed by the NT's artistic director Nick Hytner and starring Sir Michael - who was a member of the National's original company under Laurence Olivier - as Falstaff, Matthew Macfadyen as Prince Hal and David Bradley as King Henry.

The productions, which open in April, will be the first of 2005's Travelex season, in which all tickets are just £10.

Jim Broadbent will play Edward Lionheart in Theatre Of Blood, an adaptation of the 1973 schlock-horror film. In this collaboration between Improbable Theatre and the NT, Lionheart is a frustrated Shakespearian actor who wreaks a bloody revenge on his critics.

His daughter will be played by Tipping The Velvet star Rachael Stirling. Her mother, Dame Diana Rigg, took the same role in the original film.

Meanwhile Mike Leigh's new play will open at the Cottesloe theatre in September - but as yet the double Oscar nominated director has revealed no details of the project. The cast will include John Burgess, Samantha Spiro and Caroline Gruber.

Stephen Knight's first play, President Of An Empty Room, will premiere in the autumn.

Mr Knight told the Standard: "It is set in a Cuban cigar factory and it is contemporary. The situation in Cuba is that you have a precarious social situation that depends only on Castro being alive, everyone knows if he dies everything will change."

Details on www.nt-online.org