3:53pm UK, Sunday March 14, 2004

Fresh from its runaway success at the Oscars, fantasy epic Lord of the Rings is set to hit the stage as a lavish musical, reports say.

Producers are planning to turn the book series into the most expensive musical ever seen in London, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

News of the musical version comes weeks after the final film installment of the trilogy, Return Of The King, won 11 Academy Awards.

The £8m production will see dozens of actors portray hobbits, elves, wizards and orcs in complex battle scenes.

"I have been in theatre for 25 years and I know the power of theatre in telling epic stories," said co-producer Kevin Wallace, a former collaborator of successful stage composer Andrew Lloyd Webber.

"I believe that we will be able to make a version of The Lord of the Rings that will be a brilliant piece," he told the newspaper.

The show, to open next year, would last a mammoth three and a half hours, Wallace said.

"If Shakespeare can put all England on stage in Henry IV, I am confident that we can put on the whole of Middle Earth and tell the story of the entire trilogy over that time," he said.

The three books in the Lord of the Rings series, chronicling the struggle between good and evil in Middle Earth, were written by

British author JRR Tolkien from 1954-55 and have proved enduringly popular ever since.