Eddie Izzard is set to join the cast of Boychoir, a musical drama starring Dustin Hoffman and Kathy Bates.

The film is set in a music boarding school, and follows a new student played by Garrett Wareing as he faces a demanding choirmaster in Hoffman. Izzard will play Hoffman's right hand man, and is also joined in the cast by Debra Winger, Josh Lucas and Glee's Kevin McHale. It will be directed by Francois Girard, director of Silk and The Red Violin, and is written by Ben Ripley, who penned Jake Gyllenhaal thriller Source Code.

Izzard is currently coming to the end of a run of Berlin dates of his world tour Force Majeure, in which he delivers the standup comedy set in German – he has previously also performed sets in French, and plans to do further sets in Spanish, Russian and Arabic. "I talk about English kings and the Magna Carta in that set and, with a bit of explanation, it works," he told the Independent this week. He'll take the show on tour in the US from 30 April until 2 July, following the film shoot beginning in February.

He told the Guardian last year that he plans to enter politics from 2019 onwards, running either for London mayor or for parliament, saying: "I have to do this in my life. I should stand up and be counted... I think I can bring unusual things to the table, and think in a different way."