‘Poldark’ star Aidan Turner is set to make his stage debut in the West End in a revival of Martin McDonagh’s controversial play ‘The Lieutenant of Inishmore’ next year.

The 34 year old Irish actor will play Mad Padraic, a terrorist who is deemed to be too violent for the IRA, in a newly revived version of former Oscar-winner McDonagh’s rarely performed and divisive play, which will run from June 23rd to September 8th 2018 at the Noel Coward Theatre.

Set in Ireland in 1993, ‘The Lieutenant of Inishmore’ is a violent and dark comedy that tells of a paramilitary soldier who exacts bloody revenge after his cat is killed.

Aidan TurnerAidan Turner will make his West End debut in 2018

“I think people will be surprised,” Turner told the Daily Mail on Thursday (November 23rd) while filming the fourth and penultimate season of ratings-winning historical drama ‘Poldark’. “It’s the furthest I can get from Ross Poldark that I can possibly imagine.”

The play is one of two being shows being staged next year in the West End directed and produced by Michael Grandage’s theatre company.

More: Aidan Turner suggest ‘Poldark’ may finish after a fifth series

The other will see actor Alfred Molina reprise his Tony-nominated role as painter Mark Rothko in John Logan’s 2009 play ‘Red’, in a production that will run from May 4th to July 28th at the Wyndham’s Theatre.

Grandage is set to direct both. His original production of ‘Red’, back in 2010, saw the now-Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them star Eddie Redmayne win a Tony Award for his role as Rothko’s assistant Ken. Sadly, he won’t be returning for the new edition, and the part will be played by Alfred Enoch.

The first and last time that Turner appeared on any London stage was back in 2005, when he played a British soldier in a production of ‘The Plough and the Stars’ at the Barbican.

More: ‘Poldark’s Aidan Turner splits from girlfriend Nettie Wakefield