Naked Anna Friel: another Nicole Kidman moment?

When actress Anna Friel (left) first took on the role of Holly Golightly in a new West End stage version of Breakfast At Tiffany's she said she was anxious to avoid comparisons with Audrey Hepburn (right), star of the 1961 Blake Edwards movie. She appears to have succeeded in her ambition - not only by playing the part as a blonde but by stripping naked.

"One of the scary things at first for me was thinking 'Gosh! People will assume they're coming to see an Audrey Hepburn impression' and that won't be happening."

It certainly won't now after the News of the World, not known for its theatre coverage, plastered its website with photos of the naked Friel taken on a preview night at the Theatre Royal, along with this report from a theatre-goer: "The guys in the front row couldn't believe it, their eyes were on stalks."

The play is based on a novella by Truman Capote about Holly's adventures in New York high society. While the film adaptation was updated to 1960, with Hepburn at her most enchanting in her black dress and carrying a long cigarette holder, the play is set when it was written - in the Forties.

Friel, 33, who has recently played Charlotte Charles in the American TV series Pushing Daisies, is no stranger to controversy; she first came to prominence in 1993 thanks to her character Beth Jordache's notorious lesbian kiss in the British soap opera Brookside.

Whether Friel will provide London critics with the same "theatrical Viagra" moment Nicole Kidman famously afforded them in David Hare's The Blue Room ten years ago, we shall discover next week. After a run of previews, the critics are due to take their seats on September 29.