Atonement Star James McAvoy to Star in Three Days of Rain in London

Film star James McAvoy is set to star in a West End revival of Richard Greenberg's Three Days of Rain. Directed by Jamie Lloyd, the play begins previews at the Apollo Theatre on February 10, 2009.

McAvoy's screen credits include Atonement, The Last King of Scotland, The Chronicles of Narnia, Bright Young Things, Becoming Jane and Wanted. On stage, he's been seen in Breathing Corpses, Out in the Open and Privates on Parade.

Also cast is Nigel Harman, whose stage credits include The Caretaker, Privates on Parade and the West End production of Guys and Dolls. He is best known for playing Dennis on TV's EastEnders.

Set in New York, Three Days of Rain centers on a brother McAvoy, his sister and their childhood friend Harman, who meet to settle their parents' estate. The two fathers were long-time friends and partners in architecture; their legacy is the brilliantly daring creation, the 1960s Janeway House. But whose was the guiding hand? In this tense and brittle reunion, much more is at stake than who gets the house.  Brother and sister discover their father's bland, sparse diary, and use it to create a story for themselves that will explain away the present and make sense of their parent's passionless marriage. Over the "three days of rain" entered in the young architect's diary, the same three actors play their own parents in Act Two and reveal a romantic significance and creative dilemma that none of these children could ever have imagined.

Three Days of Rain premiered in London in 1999 in a production that starred Colin Firth, David Morrissey and Elizabeth McGovern. The play's original off-Broadway production in 1997 starred John Slattery, Patricia Clarkson and Bradley Whitford. A 2006 Broadway mounting starred Julia Roberts, Paul Rudd and Bradley Cooper.

The London revival is set to run through May 2, 2009.