Cork-born actor and producer Jack Gleeson has confirmed he will return to the big screen after a nine year hiatus following his role in Game of Thrones as King Joffrey Baratheon.

Gleeson is set to play the role of Wentworth in the new adaptation of Enid Blyton's Famous Five series.

The series centres on four children and their dog as they go on adventures and solve mysteries together.

Diaana Babnicova, Eliot Rose, Kit Rakusen and Flora Jacoby will play the younger roles, and a bearded collie cross named Kip has been tapped for the role of Timmy the dog.

Gleeson announced he would be retiring from acting after finishing Game of Thrones, saying the stress of acting full time had removed some of the joy from the profession.

After finishing his role as King Baratheon, he told students at Trinity College Dublin, “It really comes down to just not deriving as much enjoyment as I did from acting as I used to.

“For some reason, I don’t know it became a bit kind of mechanical and less kind of passionate when I started Game of Thrones," he added.

Gleeson has acted in films since he was a child, and came to Game of Thrones at the age of 19.

During his break from film, he turned to theatre, where he acted in and produced a number of productions for the Dublin-based theatre company, Collapsing Horse.

He returned to TV in 2020 for two episodes of the BBC show, Out of Her Mind, and also took a role in the upcoming Irish thriller, In the Land of Saints and Sinners, starring Liam Neeson and Kerry Condon.