Hestons Read Love Letters at Haymarket

Charlton Heston and his wife, Lydia Clarke Heston, will make a rare stage appearance together when they arrive in the West End next week for a revival of A R Gurney's Love Letters. The production opens at the Theatre Royal Haymarket on Thursday 8 July (previews from 6 July) and runs for a strictly limited 32 performances until Sunday 1 August.

The couple play Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and Melissa Gardner whose 50-year relationship is chronicled through their letters. From their first childhood Valentines to their final guilty goodbyes, through the letters the audience learns of Andrew and Melissa's lifelong hopes and dreams, their failures and triumphs, and ultimately, their love for one another.

Love Letters was first performed in New York in 1989 by John Rubinstein and Kathleen Turner. Since then, it has attracted several all-star casts, including Paul Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward. The Hestons first performed the two-hander in 1997 during a brief British regional tour.

The play is unusual in that it has no director and no designer and requires, literally, no rehearsal. During the performance, clocking in at just under two hours, the actors sit on the stage at a table and read directly from the assorted letters.

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