Oscar-nominated actor John Malkovich is to tread the boards in London playing a Josef Fritzl-style Austrian psychopath.

The 56-year-old star of Dangerous Liaisons will bring the piece about real-life serial killer Jack Unterweger to the Barbican Centre in 2011.

West End run: John Malkovich will be in London for a theatre production

Opera director Peter Sellars' version of Gyorgy Kurtag's Kafka Fragments, a "very Scottish" version of Peter Pan, and the first major European exhibition of avant-garde Japanese fashion are also among the highlights of the 2010/2011 season.

Outlining the programme, artistic director Graham Sheffield said Malkovich's one-man play The Infernal Comedy, in which he is backed by a Baroque orchestra and chorus, was "curiously similar" to the story of Josef Frizl, who locked his daughter in a makeshift prison.

He added that parallels could also be drawn between the work and the recent story of the British man who repeatedly assaulted his two daughters.

He said: "We're not afraid to tackle work that deals with the issues of the day.

"Part of the reason I picked it - it's not a great, fun evening in the sense of going to see In The Loop or something - was the issue of how people like that, monsters like that, can get away with crimes like that.

"Part of the reason we put on something like that is it has a pretty shocking relevance to some of things going on in society."

Sheffield, who saw Malkovich in the play's debut in Vienna, said the work was "beautiful" despite its "ostensibly shocking" subject - but added: "It's probably not a thing to take a person on a first date."

Barbican bosses were also on a high today after revealing ticket sales had reached record levels.

Barbican managing director Sir Nicholas Kenyon said: "Over the last year the Barbican had its best year ever with 1.2 million tickets sold, attendances over that year were 13% up and that success story, which I'm sure is not unique in the arts world, is continuing this year. People are buying tickets through the recession.

"The concerts we're putting on in spring 2011 are already sold out. There is a tremendous thirst for the arts and that's what we want to build on and sustain."