ROBERT Duncan and Chris Ellison are to join the Classic Thriller Theatre Company’s cast for Ruth Rendell's whodunnit A Judgement In Stone, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York, from October 16 to 21.

Building on the decade-long success of the Agatha Christie Theatre Company, whose productions sold more than two million tickets, impresario Bill Kenwright now turns his attention to Rendell, often hailed as Christie's successor.

Adapted for the stage by Simon Brett and Antony Lampard, A Judgement In Stone follows Eunice as she struggles to fit in. When she joins a wealthy family as their housekeeper, the very reason for her awkwardness, long hidden and deeply buried, leads inexorably to a terrible tale of murder in cold blood on St Valentine’s Day. Rendell’s plot duly unravels a lifetime of deceit, despair and cover-ups that ultimately brings a shocking revelation almost as grizzly as murder itself.

Duncan and Ellison will link up with director Roy Marsden's company of Sophie Ward, Deborah Grant, Shirley Anne Field, Antony Costa and Ben Nealon for the tour's second leg from September 4.

Duncan, best known for his satirical television role as Drop The Dead Donkey’s jargon-spouting, unctuous chief executive, Gus Hedges, will play proud patriarch George Coverdale; Ellison, who enjoyed a long-standing role as DCI Frank Burnside in The Bill and the self-titled spin-off, Burnside, will return to familiar investigative territory as Detective Superintendent Vetch.

Duncan appeared previously at the Opera House in the lead role of Karl Hendryk, an idealistic Eastern European professor of ethics and moral philosophy, in the Agatha Christie Theatre Company's staging of Christie’s last play, Verdict, in May 2011, and most recently as a juror in Reginald Rose’s American courtroom drama Twelve Angry Men in April 2015.

Antony Costa, who shot to fame in chart-topping boy band Blue, has since played Mickey Johnstone in Kenwright' West End production of Willy Russell's Blood Brothers and starred in the tenth anniversary tour of Boogie Nights and the 40th anniversary revival of The Who’s musical Tommy at Blackpool Opera House. He will return to the Grand Opera House in December to lead the Three Bears Productions pantomime cast as The Beast in Beauty And The Beast.

Directed Roy Marsden is best known as an actor, particularly in his 15-year role as Commander Adam Dalgliesh in Anglia TV's P.D. James series, but he has been directing plays since he was 15, latterly staging Susan Hill’s The Small Hand and the Classic Thriller Theatre Company's debut show, Rehearsal For Murder. Alongside him in the production team are designer Julie Godfrey, lighting designer Malcolm Rippeth and sound designer Dan Samson.

Tickets for A Judgement In Stone are on sale on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york