Kristin Scott Thomas will inherit Dame Helen Mirren's West End throne and play the Queen in an updated version of the hit play The Audience while its original star takes the show to Broadway.
The play, inspired by the private weekly meetings between the monarch and Britain's prime ministers - 12 in all - over her six-decade reign, is returning to London in April.
Dame Helen's performance in the role made it one of the hottest tickets in London's theatreland and producers will be hoping for a repeat performance when the show opens at the Apollo Theatre.
The new London version will include scenes with former Labour prime minister Tony Blair who did not feature in the original.
Dame Helen's Broadway performances start in February and are expected to run until June.
The West End is also welcoming another show next year in the shape of a musical version of the film Bend It Like Beckham.
The stage version of the film, which starred Keira Knightley in the story of a female football team, will be on from May and feature music by Bafta-winning composer Howard Goodall.
Gurinder Chadha, who co-wrote and directed the film, said: "I believe we are presenting a totally new kind of musical - part West End, part London Punjabi, but whole-heartedly British."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article