The hunt is on for a tortoise to star in a Frank Skinner comedy opening in the West End next month.

Adam Kenwright, producer of Cooking with Elvis, is advertising for a tortoise which must have some stage or screen experience and be able to stroll across a table top at a specified moment.

Kenwright took the unusual step because he wanted to avoid shelling out £1,000 a week to hire one - more than the show's star Frank Skinner will be earning.

Shell shock

An animal agency charged Kenwright £270 just to hire a tortoise for the day when the poster photographs were taken.

The reptile is needed to play the central character of Stanley in the play by Lee Hall, which was a hit at last year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Cooking with Elvis is the story of baker Stuart, played by Skinner, who is drawn into the lives of a dysfunctional family which includes an Elvis impersonator, a sex-mad wife, their food-obsessed daughter and Stanley.

In one key scene Skinner has to strip off and uses the tortoise to protect his modesty.

Auditions for Stanley are being held next week and the play opens at London's Whitehall Theatre on 14 March.

For more information, write to Tortoise Auditions, Gloucester Mansions, 140a Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8HD.