"Pirates of the Caribbean" star Orlando Bloom disappointed thousands of female fans, insisting Wednesday he would not strip off in his London stage debut, despite fans` hopes he would follow the lead of Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe.

Bloom will be treading the boards in the West End as one of the leads in David Storey`s play "In Celebration," which opens Thursday.

But despite rumours on Internet fan sites that he would bare all, as Radcliffe did in a recent London production of Peter Shaffer`s "Equus," Bloom, 30, said that his modesty would remain intact.

"I heard what they`re saying. But you`ve read the play. Where would I possibly get my clothes off in it? It`s bizarre," the "Lord of the Rings" actor told the Guardian. In fact, the only undressing stage direction to be found in Storey`s text is a hospitable invitation to Steven to take off his coat if he`s staying. Is it possible that the new staging reinterprets this scene so radically that Bloom keeps on going once he`s got his coat off?

"In Celebration" is a revival of a 1969 play about three sons who have escaped the way of life embodied by their father, a miner in the north of England.

It was made into a 1975 film directed by Lindsay Anderson and starring Alan Bates.

As Bloom prepares to star in a West End revival of Storey`s work, this parallel blankness is perhaps unsurprising, these two theatrical collaborators coming from contrasting branches of culture. The 30-year-old actor has never appeared professionally on stage, having spent his whole decade as an actor in epic films, including Troy and Kingdom of Heaven, with a special line in high-octane trilogies: as Legolas in The Lord of the Rings, and as Will Turner in Pirates of the Caribbean.
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