British Born Nigerian Actor David Oyelowo has landed the prestigious part of playing the first ever black James Bond.

However, die hard fans of David will not be seeing him perform action hero stunts on the screen as the part iis for an Official Audiobook directly at the request of the estate of Ian Flemming, the creator of the James Bond 007 series.

The announcement on Thursday follows long-standing rumours that Idris Elba is in line to replace Daniel Craig when the latter’s run playing James Bond on the big screen comes to an end, potentially in two movies’ time.

Oyelowo’s previous roles include Henry VI for the Royal Shakespeare Company – which made him the first black actor to play an English king in a major Shakespeare production. He also played the MI5 officer Danny Hunter in the BBC TV drama Spooks and was acclaimed for his performance as Martin Luther King in Selma.

Oyelowo will play Bond, and other characters, in the audiobook version of Trigger Mortis, written by Anthony Horowitz and commissioned by theIan Fleming estate.

Describing himself as “very honoured”, Oyelowo said: “I am officially the only person on planet Earth who can legitimately say: ‘I am the new James Bond’ – even saying that name is the cinematic equivalent of doing the ‘to be or not to be’ speech.”

He added: “I was asked specifically by the Fleming estate, which is really special.”