Stephen Fry will produce and star in a new TV adaptation of Ian Rankin's novel Doors Open due to be filmed in Edinburgh later this month.

Rankin's 2008 novel will provide the plot for a two-hour ITV drama starring Fry and Scottish actor Douglas Henshall. Filming will begin in the capital on 23 April 2012 for five weeks.

Producers were keen to use the Granton Centre of Art, the National Galleries' official collections centre on Edinburgh's waterfront, but were refused permission after fears that the film would cause security problems in revealing how to carry out the raid.

The story follows a banker, a professor of art and a computer millionaire who dream up a plan to replace priceless artworks with fakes. They use the cover of the warehouse's now defunct 'Open Doors Day' to put their plan into action.

Henshall will play Mike Mackenzie, the businessman who thinks up the plan while Fry takes the role of art expert Professor Gissing. The script is being developed by writers James Mavor and Sandi Toksvig. Rankin says he's happy that the book is going to be filmed and that the adaptation will do his novel justice.

"It's all thanks to Mr Fry," he said. "I think it will make great TV and I have no concerns about the project. The script is by a mate of mine, James Mavor, who lives in Edinburgh so it should be authentic."

After the project was announced Rankin tweeted Fry, offering to take him to Oxford Bar in Edinburgh when he's filming, the favourite haunt of Rankin's famous detective Rebus.

Fry revealed he became interested in the project after picking up Rankin's novel in an airport and getting hooked. The Scotsman reported that Fry said, "I adored the character of Professor Gissing and a shamefully vain part of me refused to see anyone else in the role."