An American TV star is to take the main role in one of the most eagerly anticipated shows at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Kyle Secor, best known for playing the detective Tim Bayliss on acclaimed US crime show Homicide: Life on the Street, will play the lead role of Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption at the Assembly Rooms.

Secor, who has also starred in Commander in Chief and The Mentalist, will play Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins in the movie, opposite comic Omid Djalili, who will play the part of Red, portrayed by Morgan Freeman on the big screen.

Secor, 56, said: "I'm so happy to be involved in the world famous Edinburgh Festival Fringe, working with such a terrific group of artists and on such an iconic role.

"I'm very excited to reintroduce audiences to this great story with its complex cast of characters.

"Another big plus – I finally get to come to Scotland and will take every opportunity to set out and experience all it has to offer."

Other actors in the show, which is described as "a timeless story of hope", include Ian Lavender, who played Private Pike in the television comedy series Dad's Army, Owen O'Neill, Steve McNicholl, Vincenzo Nicoli, Terry Alderton, Dave Johns, Joe Rooney and Jack Monaghan.

The show, which will run from August 2 to 25, will be directed by Lucy Pitman Wallace and is being regarded as the most ambitious theatre show The Assembly Rooms has seen since it re-opened following a major revamp.

The show has a "six-figure budget".

Not a direct translation of the film, the play, based on the Stephen King story, has been written by Owen O'Neill and Dave Johns.

King's novella, Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption, was published as part of an anthology in 1982.

The famous film was released in 1995 and was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture.

It regularly appears high in 'favourite film' polls.

Set in 1947, banker Dufresne is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover.

He is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences at Shawshank State Penitentiary, where he befriends contraband smuggler Ellis "Red" Redding, an inmate serving a life sentence.