The highly-anticipated third season of The Crown in due to hit our screens later this year.

Although Olivia Colman fans cannot wait to see her step into the perfectly polished shoes of Her Majesty, there is some disappointment that Claire Foy – who she is replacing - and her on-screen husband Matt Smith won’t be returning.

But fear not, royal fiction fans – Foy and Smith are reuniting in a brand new theatre production this year. Both actors are making their Old Vic theatre stage debuts in Duncan McMillian’s production of Lungs during the iconic London venues next season. 

Lungs - which explores bringing a baby into such a damaged world of melting ice caps, overpopulation and political unrest - is being described as a “hilarious emotional rollercoaster of a play, as a couple wrestle with our planet’s biggest dilemmas”. 

The play had its UK premiere in 2013 starring Kate O’ Flynn and Alistair Cope, and it won the award for best new play at the Off West End Awards of the same year. More details on the new production, including dates and tickets, are to follow, but the Old Vic’s artistic director Matthew Warchus has said that the production would play for “an extremely limited run”.

Golden Globe Awards and Screen Actor winner Foy made her professional stage debut in 2008 at the National Theatre in DNA and The Miracle. Emmy nominee Smith has starred in Swimming with Sharks at the Vaudeville Theatre, That Face at the Duke of York’s Theatre and National Theatre productions of Citizenship and The History Boys.

Consider us very intrigued. 

Images: Getty and Netflix