RSC to stage Hilary Mantel adaptations

(AP) Doctor Who star David Tennant is returning to the Royal Shakespeare Company this year to play a troubled king in Richard II.

Tennant, who played the time-traveling hero of the beloved, long-running BBC sci-fi series for four years, starred in an acclaimed RSC production of Hamlet in 2008.

Artistic director Gregory Doran Wednesday announced details of other productions for late 2013, including adaptations of Hilary Mantel's historical novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, which focus on King Henry VIII's enigmatic powerbroker, Thomas Cromwell.

Richard II opens in October at the company's base in Stratford-upon-Avon, central England, before a London run. The Mantel plays open in Stratford in December.

The season also includes Wendy and Peter Pan, a new adaptation of J.M. Barrie's children's classic.