LONDON – The Royal National Theatre has unveiled an ambitious 2026 programme that blends global star power with politically charged drama, major revivals and new writing. Under Co-Chief Executives Indhu Rubasingham and Kate Varah, the season reinforces the theatre’s commitment to reaching audiences locally, nationally and internationally — on stage, on tour and on screen.
From January to July, the South Bank stages will host a striking range of stories: corporate downfall, moral corrosion, revolutionary passion and epic wartime friendship.
Power, Money and Moral Reckoning
The year begins in the Dorfman with Terence Rattigan’s Man and Boy (30 January – 14 March 2026), a drama of financial ambition and familial betrayal. Set against the ruthless world of big business, the play examines the personal cost of corporate power. The production will also be available on National Theatre at Home, extending its reach beyond the stage.
In March, the Olivier Theatre welcomes Summerfolk (6 March – 29 April 2026), Nina Raine and Moses Raine’s new version of Maxim Gorky’s play. Gorky’s portrait of a restless middle class — disillusioned, idealistic, searching for meaning — feels freshly resonant in this reimagining.
Meanwhile, seduction and strategy take centre stage in the Lyttelton with Christopher Hampton’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses (21 March – 6 June 2026). This tale of manipulation and revenge in pre-Revolutionary France remains a chilling study of charm weaponised. The production will also be released in cinemas via National Theatre Live.
Truth, Identity and Authorship
In the Dorfman, Winsome Pinnock’s The Authenticator runs from 26 March to 9 May 2026. The play interrogates authorship and identity, and has already been confirmed for release on National Theatre at Home, signalling the theatre’s continued digital expansion.
This commitment to extending productions beyond the auditorium is a defining feature of the season, with an ambition for every production to have a life on screen — whether via streaming or cinema broadcast.
An Epic Returns Home
Few productions are as synonymous with the National Theatre as War Horse. From 16 May to 30 July 2026, the global phenomenon returns to the Olivier Theatre ahead of its 20th anniversary in 2027.
Based on Michael Morpurgo’s novel and adapted by Nick Stafford, the production — originally directed by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris — is now directed by Tom Morris with revival director Katie Henry. Featuring the ground-breaking puppetry of South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company, War Horse has been seen by more than 8.8 million people worldwide and won over 25 major awards, including the Tony Award for Best Play. Its return promises to captivate a new generation.
Sandra Oh Makes Her National Theatre Debut
From 16 June to 1 August 2026, the Lyttelton Theatre hosts Martin Crimp’s refreshed adaptation of Molière’s The Misanthrope, directed by Indhu Rubasingham.
Golden Globe-winner Sandra Oh makes her National Theatre debut as Alceste, joined by Paul Chahidi and Abigail Cruttenden. Written in contemporary verse, this new version reimagines Molière’s famously uncompromising protagonist within the context of 21st-century private relationships and public debate. The biting social satire examines sincerity, hypocrisy and the cost of speaking one’s truth.
Tickets for The Misanthrope, War Horse and the later production The Story go on general sale at 10am GMT on Thursday 12 February.
Beyond June: A Wider Horizon
Although opening later in 2026, several major productions shape the broader year.
Academy Award-winner Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss reunite — following their work in Tár — alongside Ella Lily Hyland in Electra / Persona, directed and adapted by Benedict Andrews. This new theatrical event fuses Sophocles’ Electra with Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, with music by Hildur Guðnadóttir.
Letitia Wright leads the cast of Tracey Scott Wilson’s newsroom thriller The Story, directed by Clint Dyer, joined by Aliyah Odoffin, Wilf Scolding, Ashley Thomas and Lorraine Toussaint.
In the Dorfman, Tiago Rodrigues brings his critically acclaimed Portuguese play Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists for a one-week UK premiere (19–26 September 2026). Francesca Mills will star in a new production of Jim Cartwright’s The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, directed by Robert Hastie, before it embarks on a nationwide tour. Helen Edmundson returns with the world premiere of Some Woman, her first original play since Queen Anne in 2015.
Internationally, Robert Hastie’s Hamlet transfers to Brooklyn Academy of Music (19 April – 17 May 2026), while Alexander Zeldin’s The Other Place runs at The Shed in New York (30 January – 1 March 2026), as the National Theatre approaches 60 years of activity in the United States.
A Theatre With Expanding Reach
Alongside its mainstage programme, the National Theatre continues to expand its educational and digital work. The 2025 production of Bacchae will be adapted by Nima Taleghani for a nine-week secondary schools tour in autumn 2026, directed by Hannah Hauer-King, bringing the main stage directly into classrooms across England.
Taken together, the season to June 2026 presents a theatre balancing spectacle with intimacy, heritage with reinvention. From Rattigan’s boardrooms to Molière’s salons and the battlefields of War Horse, the National Theatre’s stages will once again be a place where private conflicts and public questions collide — shared with audiences in London and far beyond.<a TO BOOK YOUR TICKET VISIT:https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/home/“> NATIONAL THEARE