Sam Mendes shocked the world of theatre last night by revealing that the first play he is to direct since winning an Oscar will be by an unknown author.
After his American Beauty triumph, the British director took Hollywood by surprise by saying that he was dying to return to the Donmar Warehouse, a small London theatre he had put on the map with his Tony Award-winning production of Cabaret and of The Blue Room starring Nicole Kidman.
Now Mendes has ditched his plans to direct Twelfth Night in favour of a drama called To The Green Fields Beyond, which is set in a tank on the western front during the first world war, and written by the relatively obscure Nick Whitby.
"Shakespeare can wait," Mendes said last night.
"You have to take advantage of a good and exciting new play like this. It is not every day they land on your desk. One of the benefits of running a theatre is that you can change the programme when you need to."
A spokeswoman for the Donmar said Twelfth Night would be staged next year instead, although casting had actually begun before the change of plan.
"Sam read To The Green Fields Beyond and went 'Wow!' said the spokeswoman.
"He really loved it, so he thought 'what the hell!' It is a fascinating piece, and it's a very unusual subject."
The play revolves around a multiracial crew of a tank during the Somme offensive in September 1916. The generals hoped that the new weapon would turn around the war, stuck in a battle of attrition, by being able to break through the German lines.
But most of the tanks broke down with mechanical failures on their first outing at the Somme, long before they got in sight of German trenches, and failed to break the stalemate.
In contrast to army tradition, the new tank corps recruited from all corners of the British empire, and moreover its tank commanders were "ordinary blokes" rather than officers.
Whitby, in his early thirties, has written comedy for TV but is best known for a play, Dirty Dishes, that has been a hit in Germany.
Mendes, 34, said last month that he was happy to direct one play a year until the right film script came along: "There are not as many of them out there as you think."
He has formed his own film company, called Donmar, backed by the DreamWorks studio, and even persuaded its boss, Steven Spielberg, to donate money to the theatre.
The head of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is also keen to secure Mendes' services, and is investing in the Donmar production of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing on Broadway.
