Actor Jude Law is taking to West End to play the title role in Hamlet.

The 34-year-old star will appear in a new production for London’s Donmar Warehouse, directed by Kenneth Branagh.

Law, who worked with the British director in the film Sleuth earlier this year when he played an adulterous hairdresser, has said in the past that he longed to play the Prince of Denmark.

“Jude was on the record as saying he wanted to tackle Hamlet at some point,” the Telegraph quoted Michael Grandage, the artistic director of the Donmar, as saying.

The production will open in the summer of 2009 at the Donmar Warehouse theatre in Covent Garden.

Law worked with Branagh on his new film remake, Sleuth, and has formerly appeared in stage productions of Death of a Salesman and Dr Faustus.