Helen Mirren will return to the stage next summer to star in a new National Theatre production of Phaedra, directed by NT artistic director Nicholas Hytner. The production, which will co-star Margaret Tyzack, is slated to open in the NT Lyttelton in June 2009.

It will be Mirren’s first stage appearance since winning the Best Actress Oscar for the 2006 film The Queen and her first in six years, having last trod the boards – also at the National – in Howard Davies’ 2003 production of Eugene O’Ne...