The RSC announces full details of its Spring 2026 season, which sees multi award-winning actor and filmmaker 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 season features five productions, 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. The programme brings together globally renowned and emerging talents to tell stories that speak directly to our world now, united in their exploration of what bonds individuals to home, family and country.

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Multi-million-selling British pianist, singer and broadcaster Jamie Cullum will make his theatrical debut with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) this summer, composing new music for The Constant Wife by Olivier Award-winning playwright Laura Wade (Posh, The Riot Club, Rivals) based on W. Somerset Maugham’s original play of the same title. The production will be directed by RSC Co-Artistic Director Tamara Harvey and feature Rose Leslie (Vigil, Miss Austen, Game of Thrones) in the lead role.

 Jamie Cullum said: “I am thrilled to be composing the music for The Constant Wife and so excited to be working in theatre like this for the first time. As a composer who often works within the jazz genre, I am very familiar with the idea of evolving traditions and searching for new ways to play classic material. I feel honoured that the brilliant RSC are entrusting me with this opportunity to bring some musical ingenuity to Laura’s deliciously funny and subversive adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s original 1926 script. It’s already been a joy working with Tamara Harvey and bouncing ideas around with her. I’m looking forward to getting stuck into rehearsals.”

RSC Co-Artistic Director and director of The Constant Wife, Tamara Harvey said: “It’s brilliant to be working with Jamie on the music for The Constant Wife. Jamie’s contribution has invigorated contemporary jazz and engaged a new generation of listeners. Who better to help us create the world of The Constant Wife, 100 years after it was written? Laura Wade has injected this brilliant classic play with her modern sparkle and bite and Jamie’s music promises to bring another dimension to the story. I’m so excited to see where we go together – it’s already sounding incredible.”

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The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) today announce nine international Fellows who will lead a major programme exploring the future of creative and cultural practice. Supported by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council over a period of four years, each Fellow will focus on a research theme which responds to the biggest challenges faced by the creative industries and wider society, and the change needed for the development and survival of the sector and future economic growth. The Fellowships form part of AHRC’s PORTIA (participatory and open research through technology in action) programme which seeks to create the spaces, places and platforms that enable creativity-led R&D to thrive.

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Today, the RSC announces the appointment of Bailey Lock as the Company’s new Executive Producer (Stratford), working alongside Co-Artistic Directors  Tamara Harvey  and  Daniel Evans and Executive Director Andrew Leveson to lead the producing team at the RSC’s home in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Bailey is currently Co-Executive Director of the Unicorn Theatre, the UK’s leading children’s theatre, working alongside Co-ED Helen Tovey, and Artistic Director Rachel Bagshaw. As ED she oversaw the organisation during the pandemic, launching Unicorn Online with former Artistic Director Justin Audibert – an award-winning, free, digital theatre programme that continues to reach thousands of children nationally. During her tenure the Unicorn has collaborated with Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, the Roald Dahl Story Company, English National Ballet, Talawa Theatre Company, Upswing, Sheffield Theatres, Children’s Theatre Partnership, ATG Creative Learning and the National Theatre.

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Today, the RSC announces the appointment of Despina Tsatsas as the Company’s new Executive Producer (London), working alongside Co-Artistic Directors Tamara Harvey and Daniel Evans and Executive Director Andrew Leveson to define and deliver commercial producing opportunities for the RSC in London and internationally.

Despina joins the organisation with over 20 years’ experience across the subsidised and commercial theatre and entertainment sectors, and most recently created a new artist-led live experiences division for prominent UK music entity ATC Group plc. She takes up her role in September.

Despina Tsatsas said today:

“The ambition of Daniel and Tamara’s first season, and the range of artist collaborations within it, speaks for itself. I look forward to working with the Co-ADs, ED Andrew Leveson and the whole RSC team, to deliver meaningful commercial sector partnerships that bring RSC productions to the broadest range of audiences in the UK and internationally.”

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Gregory Doran’s clearly got big plans for the Henriad. 2013’s Richard II charted a descent from majesty. Although Henry IV Part One opens with the solemn procession of the King’s men fresh from the crusades, it is clear throughout that Doran wishes to portray the struggle from the pits of Eastcheap to an earned, rather than stolen, monarchy. The imagery of an usurped Richard is invoked constantly, including a very literal ghost watching Henry’s coronation within the first sequence on stage.

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