London, Jan 22 (ANI): ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ director Danny Boyle is set to return to theatre work - 15 years after he turned his back on it.

Boyle, 53, has wanted to revive an idea for a stage show that he had been putting off for more than a decade.

He contacted Sir Nicholas Hytner, the artistic director of the National Theatre, to say he was ready to have a go at ‘Frankenstein’, which is Mary Shelley’s story of the perils of playing God.

Hytner said that Boyle had got in touch when the buzz for Slumdog Millionaire was at its height.

“Very shortly after he won the Oscar, he rang and said, ‘I think I’m ready now’,” Times Online quoted the theatre director as saying.

He also revealed that they had first discussed adapting Frankenstein eight years ago.

“When I was first appointed to the job, Danny and I sat down for a cup of coffee and talked about his idea for Frankenstein,” he said.

“I spoke to him yesterday and he said he was coming back to the theatre after being distracted by 15 years of film-making,” he stated.

Hytner said that Boyle had met him in Soho, Central London, to outline how he would make Frankenstein a theatrical event, but did not make a formal proposal until last year.

Boyle was not available for comment as he is in the United States filming 127 Hours, the true story of Aron Ralston, a hiker who was forced to saw off his own arm after being trapped by a rock fall.

The production of Frankenstein will be a new adaptation written by Nick Dear, whose play The Art of Success was nominated for an Olivier Award.

Shelley’s work has been adapted for the stage dozens of times but critics said that there was no single production that stood out.

Hytner said the play, which is scheduled for the end of this year or the beginning of 2011, would be a “large-scale and theatrically and visually ambitious” production.

“Danny has a very particular take on the material by Shelley but it will be exciting to see what has been altered by what he has discovered about himself through 15 years of film-making . . . He wasn’t a big-scale director 15 years ago,” he added. (ANI)