The newly announced season will see Kenneth Branagh make a return to Stratford-upon-Avon for the first time in over 30 years, alongside Academy Award-winning actress Helen Hunt and double Olivier Award-winning actor Mark Gatiss in their RSC debuts.
The Royal Shakespeare Company has announced five productions heading to the stage in its 2026 season including a landmark staging of Shakespeare’s late masterpiece, two European classics urgently retold for today, an innovative new co-production with the UK’s leading theatre for young audiences, and an award-nominated debut play.
Marking his return to the Royal Shakespeare Company for the first time in over 30 years, renowned actor Kenneth Branagh will star in two productions running across Summer 2026, playing Prospero in a new staging of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest directed by Sir Richard Eyre, and Lopakhin alongside Academy award-winning actress Helen Hunt as Madame Ranyevskaya in anew version of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard by Laura Wade directed by Tamara Harvey.
The Tempest is set to play from Wednesday 13 May – Saturday 20 June in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, with Branagh taking on the role Prospero for the first time in his career, with the production also marking Sir Richard Eyre’s first time directing in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Meanwhile, Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard will run at the company’s Swan Theatre from Friday 10 July – Saturday 29 August. This new version of Chekhov’s final play by Olivier Award-winning playwright Laura Wade (Posh, The Riot Club, Rivals) sees Wade re-united with RSC Co-Artistic Director Tamara Harvey following their critically acclaimed production of The Constant Wife which premiered in the Swan Theatre in June this year. The production marks Helen Hunt’s debut with the company and follows a distinguished career spanning film, television, and theatre, as both actress, writer, director and producer.
Also for 2026, Mark Gatiss will be making his RSC debut as Arturo Ui in Bertolt Brecht’s biting political satire on Hitler’s ascent to power. This new production of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, in a version byStephen Sharkey, is directed by Seán Linnen, in his debut for the company. The production will play in the Swan Theatre from Saturday 11 April – Saturday 30 May.
it has also been announced that in The Other Place Martina Laird (RSC Coriolanus and The New Real, BBC Casualty) will make her playwriting debut Driftwood, shortlisted for the 2024 Verity Bargate Award. Directed by Chichester Festival Theatre’s Artistic Director Justin Audibert, the production has its world premiere in The Other Place from Friday 17 April – Saturday 30 May, before heading to London’s Kiln Theatre from the Wednesday 3 June to Saturday 4 July.
Also at The Other Place, Unicorn Theatre’s Artistic Director Rachel Bagshaw directs a riotous re-telling of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in a new co-production between the RSC and the Unicorn. Edited by Robin Belfield and created for children and families, the previously announced production will run from Saturday 21 March to Sunday 3 May at the Unicorn, London, before playing in The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon from Friday 19 June – Sunday 30 August.
The five productions join the previously announced Measure for Measure directed by Emily Burns, Cyrano De Bergerac by Simon Evans and Debris Stephenson, featuring Adrian Lester in the title role, Macbeth featuring Sam Heughan and Lia Williams,the world stage premiere of new musical, The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind, The Forsyte Saga Parts 1 & 2, Whitney White’s All Is But Fantasy, Henry V directed by RSC Co-Artistic Director Tamara Harvey andfeaturing Alfred Enoch, and the world premiere of Tom Wells’ adaptation of The BFG in a co-production with Chichester Festival Theatre and the Roald Dahl Story Company, directed by RSC Co-Artistic Director, Daniel Evans.
Co-Artistic Directors Tamara Harvey and Daniel Evans said: “When we set out as the Co-Artistic Directors of the Royal Shakespeare Company, we were united by a belief in the RSC as a home for radical and resonant theatre – inspired by Shakespeare and made by the most exciting artists from across the globe. Two years after our arrival, that commitment remains at the heart of everything we do.
From Shakespeare’s late meditation on freedom and forgiveness to Anton Chekhov’s prescient final play, by way of Bertolt Brecht’s searing satire on the rise of fascism, our relationship to family, community and state is bought sharply into focus on stage in 2026. We know that the stories we choose to tell as artists play a vital role in bringing people together, building connections and deepening our understanding of one another. In an increasingly volatile world, this matters to us more than ever.”
For further information visit: https://www.rsc.org.uk/