Ralph Fiennes returns to National for Shaw's Man and Superman?

Ralph Fiennes will reportedly return to the National Theatre next year to star in a revival of George Bernard Shaw's play Man and Superman, as part of Nicholas Hytner's final season as artistic director.

Fiennes, whose credits at the National include Oedipus, The Talking Cure and last year's WhatsOnStage Award-winning 50th anniversary gala, will star as the play's idealistic hero John Tanner, according to the Daily Mail.

The newspaper's Baz Bamigboye reports: "It’s a major coup for the National to secure Fiennes’ services. He’s such an in-demand actor, but Fiennes has managed to carve out valuable time for thespian duties now that he also directs films, such as the recent The Invisible Woman."

The production will reportedly be directed in the NT Lyttelton by Simon Godwin, who recently helmed an acclaimed revival of Eugene O'Neill's experimental epic Strange Interlude on the same stage. It may also be broadcast as part of NT Live.

Bamigboye also reports that artistic director-in-waiting Rufus Norris' first season will include "a new play from Lee Hall, to open in 2016, about a Northern regiment that performed plays and operas in the trenches during World War I."

Norris takes the reigns in April 2015. Further details of Hytner's final season in charge will be revealed at a press conference next week (20 March 2013).