THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING, adapted for the stage by Joan Didion from her best-selling memoir of the same name, chronicles the aftermath of her husband's sudden death.

Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We know that someone close to us could die. We might expect to feel shock. We do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect to be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy – cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes.

Following a sell-out run on Broadway in 2007, Vanessa Redgrave repeats her award-winning solo performance in David Hare's production which now receives its UK premiere at the Lyttelton (followed by a UK and international tour later in the year).

Joan Didion was born in California and lives in New York. She is the author of five novels and seven previous books of non-fiction, including Sentimental Journeys, The White Album and Slouching Towards Bethlehem. She was married for almost 40 years to the writer John Gregory Dunne; their daughter, Quintana, died shortly before the publication of The Year of Magical Thinking.

Vanessa Redgrave has previously appeared at the National in John Gabriel Borkman and The Cherry Orchard; her recent stage work includes Hecuba for the RSC in London, Washington, New York and Delphi, and Long Day's Journey Into Night on Broadway (Tony Award for Best Actress). The most recent of her many screen credits include Atonement, Evening, The Fever, Venus, The Shell Seekers, The Gathering Storm and If These Walls Could Talk (Emmy and Golden Globe Awards, Best Supporting Actress).

David Hare's productions for the National include Howard Brenton's Weapons of Happiness, Trevor Griffiths' The Party, Shakespeare's King Lear, Shaw's Heartbreak House and Wallace Shawn's The Designated Mourner, as well as his own plays Plenty, A Map of the World, Pravda (written with Howard Brenton), and The Bay at Nice and Wrecked Eggs. His new play Gethsemane will open at the NT in 2009. -- www.nationaltheatre.org.uk