Over 30 years since he last trod the boards in Stratford-upon-Avon, stage and screen legend Kenneth Branagh will finally reunite with the RSC in 2026 as he tackles one of the few great Shakespeare roles he’s never played. In what is astonishingly his 35th Shakespearean role, he’ll star as Prospero in a huge new production of The Tempest (May 13-Jun 20) that will run in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre next year.
Prodigiously gifted as Branagh is, it’s perhaps a relief to see that he’ll be directed by the venerable former National Theatre boss Richard Eyre (who will be making his RSC debut) – Branagh’s last Shakespearean outing was a somewhat eccentric neolithic style take on King Lear that he starred in and directed himself, to bemused reviews. Here, he’ll be free to focus on the acting.
Plus he’ll have time to stick around and team up with the great American actor Helen Hunt, who will make her RSC debut co-starring with Branagh in a new version of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard that’s been adapted by the brilliant satirical playwright Laura Wade – directed by Harvey it’ll run in the Swan Theatre July 10-August 29.
And they’re not the only big names in RSC bosses Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey’s 2026 season. National treasure Mark Gatiss will make his debut for the company to take on the title role of a new version of Brecht’s classic Chicago-set satire on Hitler’s rise to power, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, directed by Seán Linnen.
The season will be rounded out by a new play by the actor Martina Laird called Driftwood (Apr 17-May 30), a family drama set in a Trinidad on the verge of independence from colonial rule, and previous announced version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Jun 19-Aug 30) that’s a co-production with the Unicorn kids’ theatre in London. They’ll both run in The Other Place.
There’s plenty to come before that, with highlights of the autumn and winter including Adrian Lester in Cyrano de Bergerac (Sep 27-Nov 15) and a big Christmas adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The BFG (Nov 25-Feb 7 2026).
The RSC’s spring/summer 2026 season goes on sale October 8 at 10am.
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