The American film star Kathleen Turner, whose many films include “Body Heat,” “Romancing the Stone,” “Peggy Sue Got Married” and “The War of the Roses,” returns to the stage to make her West End debut in a new stage adaptation of The Graduate.

Based on Charles Webb's novel and best known for Mike Nichols' award-winning 1967 film, which starred Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson, Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock and Katharine Ross as Elaine Robinson, the world premiere stage adaptation by Terry Johnson will feature Turner and young British actors Matthew Rhys and Kelly Reilly respectively in those roles.

Johnson, the author of such plays as Dead Funny, Hysteria and Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick, will direct his own play, opening at the Gielgud Theatre on April 5, 2000, following previews from March 24.

Kathleen Turner, who last year did a one-woman play about Tallulah Bankhead at Britain's Chichester Festival Theatre, was previously seen on stage in the Broadway production of Cocteau's Indiscretions. Matthew Rhys will be seen in a number of yet-to-be-released feature films, including Julie Taymor's version of Titus Andronicus and Peter Hewitt's Whatever Happened to Harold Smith?, as well as Peaches, Sorted, The Testimony of Taliesin Jones and Untitled Wales (the latter two opposite Jonathan Pryce). Kelly Reilly will also be seen in Peaches.

-- By Mark Shenton, What's On Stage
What's On Stage, London