The acclaimed director of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest has pulled out of the show just two weeks before it opens at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Guy Masterson said the stress of staging such a high-profile production, with Hollywood star Christian Slater heading the cast of comics, was proving too much.

The show is a follow-up to last year’s 12 Angry Men, the biggest grossing drama in Fringe history, and is destined for the West End once the Fringe is over.

Masterson told The Scotsman: “The pressure of the production just got to me.

“Sometimes you have to decide what’s more important. I had been working 18 hours a day and had barely seen my family for three weeks, and I just had a moment when I sat down and said, I can’t do this. I just collapsed."

Masterson added that his decision was not down to problems with the rehearsals or the cast, which includes The Office’s Mackenzie Crook and comics Phil Nichol, Stephen K Amos and Lucy Porter.

No successor to Masterson has yet been named.