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National Theatre

Item: National Theatre | Theatre in South Bank, London
Author: Anya Ryan

The world's greatest theatre?

Theatre | Public and national theatres
South Bank
Recommended

Thursday 7 May 2026

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Written by Anya Ryan

Contributing writer, Time Out London

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Time Out says

What is it?

Arguably the greatest theatre in the world, the Royal National Theatre is also one of London's most recognisable landmarks and one of the capital’s best examples of brutalist architecture. It boasts three auditoriums – the epic, ampitheatre-style Olivier, the substantial end-on space Lyttelton and the Dorfman, a smaller venue for edgier work. It's got a firm foothold on the West End, thanks to transferring shows like War Horse and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. In summer, it spills out onto Southbank with its River Stage line-up of outdoor events. And its NT Live programme beams its greatest hits to cinemas across the globe.

NT Live is just one of the initiatives to issue forth from the golden reign of former artistic director Nicholas Hytner, which saw a canny mix of modernised classics, popular new writing, and a splash of hip experimental work fill out the houses night after night. Hytner's successor Rufus Norris has offered a programme that's stuck with many Hytner fundamentals but offered an edgier, more international spin, with a run of ambitious, experimental and – in the beginning especially – sometimes divisive works.

In 2025 former Kiln boss Indhu Rubsingham took over as artistic director: the first woman and the first person of colour to hold the post.

Why go?

Of course, the main reason to go to the National Theatre is to see a play. Who knows? You could be lucky enough to nab a ticket to the next big hit, following in the footsteps of The History Boys or People Places and Things. But, the building has other features too. Forza Wine on the theatre’s wraparound terrace, where you can drink natty wines and snack on cauliflower fritti, is one of the main reasons to visit if you’re not watching a play. If you're free on a weekday afternoon (except Friday) take a roam around the National Theatre's archive to soak up some theatre history. Or, the bookshop on the theatre's ground floor is the perfect place to pick up a gift for a friend.

Don't miss:

The NT is a popular hangout for theatre fans, thanks to its warren-like array of spots to work and play. But the real insider's hangout is The Understudy, a rough-and-ready riverside bar which brews its own lager and is thronged with theatre hipsters on pretty much any night of the week.

When to visit:

The National Theatre building is open from 10am-11pm every day apart from Sunday. Show times vary depending on the theatre, but usually start between 7-7.30pm

Ticket info:

Tickets are availble from the National Theatre website and prices vary.

Time Out tip:

If you're looking for cheap seats, the NT releases £10 tickets each Friday at 1pm for the following week. The link is here.

Details

Address: South Bank; London; SE1 9PX

Transport:: Rail/Tube: Waterloo

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What’s on

Pride

This review is from May 2026, of Pride’s run at the National Theatre, Dorfman. In November it transfers to the larger Bridge Theatre. Writer Stephen Beresford’s musical adaptation of his own 2014 film is a triumph. Under the assured direction of Matthew Warchus – who also directed the film – with a by-turns playful and powerful score by Christopher Nightingale, Josh Cohen and DJ Walde, Pride succeeds in packing a wallop of an emotional punch while never neglecting to find the very human humour in even its most sombre moments. It’s an impassioned and timely plea for seeking out common ground. You’ll laugh-cry your way through it. As with the film, the show draws on the extraordinary real life story of how, in 1984, a group of gays and lesbians, led by fiery socialist Mark (Jhon Lumsden), raised donations and travelled to the small Welsh village of Onllwyn to support its striking miners against a common enemy: the British establishment. Along the way, the story takes in the media smear tactics and daily intimidation facing and uniting these seemingly dissimilar groups. It also unflinchingly charts the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS. Beresford sketches the colourful cast of characters with precision and wit, perfectly catching their personalities in the briefest lines of dialogue. Lumsden confidently walks Mark’s tightrope of charisma, drive and self-righteousness. Lewis Cornay is sweet as ‘newbie’ gay, Bromley. Jordan Shaw gets big laughs as humility-untroubled Reggie,...

Musicals
Until 8 May 2027

Electra/Persona

What a treat for London to get two major Cate Blanchett stage performances two years on the trot. A major stage force long before her screen career took off, Blanchett famously co-ran the Sydney Theatre Company with her husband Andrew Upton for five years, and has taken plenty of work to New York, but her London appearances tend to have been confined to avant-garde projects that were difficult to get tickets to: see her previous National Theatre turn in 2019’s weirdy When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other. But with last year’s The Seagull at the Barbican the double Academy Award winner – and now Sussex resident – signalled that she was ready for still artsy but relatively more mainstream work on bigger stages, and that continues with Electra/Persona. Running on the Lyttelton stage over late summer, it’s directed and adapted by fellow Aussie Benedict Andrews and is indeed a mash-up of Ancient Greek classic Electra and Ingmar Bergman’s more recent 1966 masterpiece Persona. Exactly how all this will work is TBC, although it would seem from the synopis that a performance of Electra replaces the film images that traditionally rupture the world of the two female leads in Persona. Blanchett will be joined by her Tár co-star Nina Hoss and young Black Doves star Ella Lily Hyland. It’s not yet clear who is playing who although doomed princess Electra and Persona’s leads Elisabet and Alma offers three obviously leads (though it may not be as simple as all that).

Drama
Until 10 Oct 2026

The Story

Tracey Scott Wilson’s US newspaper drama The Story is definitely more red top than broadsheet in tone. But there’s always a place for some thrills in the theatre. Making its UK debut almost a quarter century after its 2003 US one, its roots stretch even further back in time: it’s inspired by the story of Janet Cooke, a promising young Black reporter for the Washington Post who was forced to return her Pulitzer Prize after her 1980 story about child heroin addicts on the streets of DC turned out to be largely fabricated. Wilson has her mind on more ambitious stuff than that, however, as she takes us into the ‘Vanguard’ section of a Post-alike newspaper in an unspecified American city. Manned by a somewhat eccentric team of three reporters, all Black, Vanguard is nominally an ‘around town’ style gossip section that has been repurposed as a African American community news by Pat (Lorraine Toussaint), the steely Civil Rights veteran who rules over the section with an iron fist. She is supported by Neil (Ashley Thomas), her chief underling and longterm mentee, who knows his place. And she enjoys a somewhat frosty relationship with newbie Yvonne (Letitia Wright), an impressive young reporter who has a less easy relationship with the Black community than her co-workers. Bullied by her Black peers as a child, stints in boarding school and Harvard have left her feeling like an outsider, and she is engaged in a clandestine relationship with the paper’s white head of news, nepo...

Drama
Until 24 Oct 2026

Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists

It can only be a good sign that the National Theatre is now modestry reviving some of the international outreach that was once a permanent fixture of its programming. It’s baby steps, but for theatrical Europhiles the opportunity to see this play from Portugueue maestro Tiago Rodrigues is a real treat. Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists is set in Portugal, 2028, and does indeed follow Catarina as she grapples with whether she can bring herself to kill her first fascist, in continuation of a family tradition. The fiery drama is performed in Portugueue with English surtitles.

Experimental
19 Sept26 Sept 2026

The Jungle Book

Although the National Theatre will be running shows in all three theatres over the Christmas hols, The Jungle Book is emphatically its Big Christmas Show. A lavish family friendly adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s India-set story cycle, it’s adapted by Indian playwright Anupama Chandrasekhar (of the excellent The Father and the Assassin fame), and emphatically not a stage version of the beloved Disney film. Specifically, we know that the action is being relocated to the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans in the country’s east. But one would imagine Chandrasekhar’s spin will be distinctly postcolonial, and while Disney’s plot was cobbled together from selected bits of Kipling’s collection of stories, the playwright may opt for others. Still, don’t imagine it’ll be radically different: it’ll focus on Mowgli the Man-Cub – played by NT stalwart Hiran Abeysekera – and feature spectacular puppet renderings of his various animal friends and enemies. NT boss Indhu Rubasingham will direct, with puppets by Finn Caldwell and Nick Barnes.

Drama
13 Nov 20266 Feb 2027