Punk icon Joe Strummer is to play a show at the Royal Opera House as the London venue stages its first-ever rock concert.

He will be on the bill with his band The Mescaleos, Canadian star Bryan Adams and Queen's Bryan May in a charity show to raise money for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.

The show celebrates the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the mountain gorilla, and will be directed by composer Michael Kamen, who directed the Queen's Golden Jubilee concert at Buckingham Palace in June.

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Kamen said: "This concert will be an evening of fantastic music, set in a stunning venue and all to raise money for the gorillas."

The charity is named after its founder, who started campaigning for gorilla preservation since the 1960s. She was murdered in 1985, but her book Gorillas In The Mist was turned into a film starring Sigourney Weaver in 1988.

The concert will be the first rock gig at the Covent Garden venue, which is home to the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet.

Despite its stuffy image, it has started playing host to different kinds of shows - Icelandic star Bjork has performed there, and Sir Elton John will appear there in December.

Actors Jeremy Irons, Terence Stamp and Monty Python star Michael Palin take to the stage alongside Strummer to give readings throughout the charity evening on 10 November.

Tickets for the show will cost up to �250.

Strummer - who once railed against the ruling classes as The Clash's frontman - is among the few punk leading lights to have refused offers to reform his band.

Their London Calling album was voted the greatest release of the 1980s by Rolling Stone magazine - despite being released in 1979.