Mischa Barton is to make her UK stage debut in a new version of James M Cain’s crime novel Double Indemnity. The actor, best known for the 00s TV series The OC, will take on the role played by Barbara Stanwyck in the 1944 film noir adaptation.

Barton described Double Indemnity as a “gripping tale of deceit, tension and suspense”. Her character, Phyllis, concocts a scheme with a salesman to murder her husband and make it look like an accident, in order to cash in on the eponymous clause in his life insurance policy.

The adaptation is by Australian playwright Tom Holloway. It will be directed by Oscar Toeman for a UK and Ireland tour that opens at Devonshire Park theatre in Eastbourne on 5 February and visits Nottingham, Brighton, Cardiff and Dublin among other cities. Further casting is yet to be announced.

Barton, born in London, appeared on stage in New York in the 1990s before finding fame as the Orange County high-school student Marissa Cooper in The OC, which ran from 2003 to 2007. She appeared in an Irish stage production of Steel Magnolias at the Gaiety in Dublin and on tour in 2012. “I’m very proud of the Irish side of the family,” she told the Guardian earlier this year. “My mom was so proud to see me at the Gaiety, she literally cried … We went to Cork, Galway and Limerick. In at least three of the theatres, somebody sent a note backstage saying: ‘I’m related to you. If you want to come up to the front and meet me, I’m your such and such cousin.’ It was really cute.”

Cain’s crime novel The Postman Always Rings Twice was staged in London’s West End in 2005 with Val Kilmer. That book’s 1943 film adaptation Obsession by Luchino Visconti inspired a 2017 theatre production at the Barbican in London, starring Jude Law and directed by Ivo van Hove.