Royal Shakespeare Company

Tonight Francesca McKeown has her first performance in the role of Matilda in Matilda The Musical at London's Cambridge Theatre.

"Oh, call me Tartuffe, please. We are at least friends, aren't we?"
See the photos from our new production of Tartuffe, now playing in the Swan Theatre
https://bit.ly/2tvtTNk... #RSCTartuffe
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Enter a post-apocalyptic world...
#RSCTroilus https://bit.ly/2MjLjnI

"I’m really proud to see Birmingham represented on stage, especially at the RSC: Birmingham is so close to Stratford that I’ve always felt it should be one of Birmingham’s home theatres."
https://bit.ly/2tvtTNk
#RSCTartuffe

2019 marks the 250th anniversary of the 1769 Stratford Shakespeare Jubilee – a festival concocted by the one and only actor, theatre manager, playwright and producer David Garrick.
The Jubilee launched Stratford-upon-Avon as the epicentre of the Shakespeare Industry. Of course, having an outdoor festival in Britain meant that on the second day it rained (and RAINED), with the grand pageant having to be cancelled.
2019 sees us celebrate Garrick's legacy as we stage two Restoration plays in which he played his most successful roles: Sir John Brute in The Provoked Wife and Jaffier in Venice Preserved: https://bit.ly/2oY9DSB #RSCSummer19

‘I want us to reflect the nation...’
Our Artistic Director, Gregory Doran, chats to The Telegraph about casting in Troilus and Cressida this Winter, and our 2019 Summer Season.
#RSCTroilus #RSCSummer19

Announcing our 2019 Summer Season...
🌳As You Like It ♀ The Taming of the Shrew ⚖️ Measure for Measure... 👑 Kunene and the King 👰 The Provoked Wife 💔 Venice Preserved
Public Booking opens on 22 October 2018. Want to get your hands on tickets sooner? Priority Booking opens from 24 September 2018. Join now: https://bit.ly/2CEqqnt
#RSCSummer19
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Morning! Here's some exciting news to kick off your week... Announcing our 2019 Summer Season in Stratford-upon-Avon...
Public Booking opens on 22 October 2018. Want to get your hands on tickets sooner? Priority Booking opens from 24 September. Join now: https://bit.ly/2CEqqnt
#RSCSummer19

It's National Dementia Carers Day and we're proud to be a dementia-friendly theatre and to be hosting Vamos Theatre's funny, fearless, award winning #FindingJoy this November!
#NDCD18
https://player.vimeo.com/video/286195792< br>

'This coming summer...'
#1DayToGo

‘With the word the time will bring on summer'
#2DaysToGo

📸 Check out these pictures of the new London cast of Matilda The Musical in rehearsals. 📸

Ahead of their hilarious Brummy satire, Tartuffe, opening in the Swan Theare this evening, we caught up with writers Anil Gupta and Richard Pinto about our £10 First Time Fridays ticket scheme. It's better than football we'll have you know...
https://bit.ly/2oPUS4c #FirstTimeFridays #RSCTartuffe

In case you missed it - our 2019 tour of Romeo and Juliet will now also visit Cardiff and Glasgow. Tickets for all venues are on sale now!
Romeo and Juliet will tour to - Norwich Theatre Royal, Newcastle Theatre Royal, Bradford Theatres, Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall, Grand Theatre Blackpool, New Theatre Cardiff and King's and Theatre Royal Glasgow

You’d better pray you get Rush tickets today. Our brand new comedy for just £10? Sounds good to us! #RSCTartuffe
https://bit.ly/2Ct86xJ

'My lord, I have news to tell you...'
#3DaysToGo

Get ready #1daytogo #RSCTartuffe

Looking for a new job? There’s no better place to go than the RSC.
We’re currently recruiting for a number of different roles, including an Apprentice Trainee Venue Manager and a Customer Service (Ticketing) Apprentice.
If this sounds like something for you, please do apply:... https://bit.ly/2Q4ho65
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Watch our Merry Wives actor Charlotte Josephine, Movement Director Ayse Tashkiran and Head of Scenic Resources Rebecca Cubitt in discussion with Lynne Enright from The Pool, as they talk about women in theatre – perfect to get you in the mood for the feisty Merry Wives in cinemas on Wednesday 12 September! 💅
#RSCWindsor

We watched the Macbeth performance, live, on screen in Shrewsbury. Christopher Ecclestone was very good as usual, but I want to mention 2 other actors who really stood out... Donna Banya and Michael Hodgeson. Donna' s ability to express so much when she had few words was outstanding. Michael's comedic timing was superb. I took my teenage son to the performance to help him with his GCSE and he loved it too. Thank you for a great night.

Tonight’s performance of Macbeth was beyond brilliant! By far the best production of this play I’ve ever seen . A master stroke having the girls play the witches , chilling. Niamh was a splendidly evil Lady M. and McDuffs reaction at hearing about the death of of his family was soooo well delivered it brought tears to my eyes.

The whole feel of it was sublime due not only to the fine performances from the marvellous cast but the special effects, costume, lighting and stirring incidental music.

Totally surprised to find my neck hair stand on end and goose bumps on my arms at the climax . Keep on making Shakespeare relevant and full of twisty little nuances, well done a most excellent night. I would have gladly sat and watched it all again.

Oh my ... you have to see this show ‘Follies of Mrs Rich’ .. it was so brilliantly funny. Well done to all the cast. It was my Wife Sylvia and my 33rd Wedding Anniversary and we could not have chosen a more fabulous way of celebrating it ... still chuckling a day later xxx �

Me and my husband have been coming for a number of years now and have never been disappointed. Each production has had me completely gripped from start to finish, the rome season was especially brilliant. We brought our 2 teenagers for the first time to see twelfth night this week and they loved it, we're already booked in for the whole summer season. We always find all the staff very friendly and polite and are always on hand to answer any questions.

Would highly recommend the tour too, very interesting!

Loved this production! The interpretation was gripping and the presentation moving. Effects complimented the themes and were thought provoking, breathing new life into this popular play. My son said it was simply the best thing he had ever seen. We will be talking about this for a long time! Huge success - well done RSC!

I just wanted to say that not only is the RSC a fantastic performance venue it's front of house staff are wonderful. They are trained to perfection and have communication and empathy.

Thank you so much for your kindness when I became ill during the amazing performance of Tamburlaine.

I'm still seething that I missed the ending and hope I didn't make too much of a kerfuffle �

You should all be highly commended for the work you do in front of house and behind the scenes.

I just wanted to say a very big thank you to Justine. She gave me wonderful 5 star service today in the Box Office. I rang hoping to secure tickets for a matinee performance of Romeo & Juliet that looked like it had sold out. I explained that I was hoping to bring my son, who is studying this play as part of his GCSE English exam that he sits in May.



Justine couldn't have been more helpful. She worked hard to find me 2 tickets. Her care and courtesy were refreshingly admirable, and she was a complete joy to deal with. I now have one very happy and excited 16 year old son.....Dad is pretty chuffed as well.



Very easy to think of the RSC as the actors, directors, set and costume designers etc, but I wanted to call out how wonderful your support staff are elsewhere. Justine is a great credit to you.



I do hope you will pass my comments on to her with my warmest thanks and appreciation.

I just saw the Mischief Festival with #We Are Arrested and Day of the Living. These are both fabulous plays. The first portraying a Turkish journalist exiled for exposing the truth and the second a wonderful production about disappeared Mexican students and a blatant government cover up. The songs and life and creativity in Day of the Living is awesome. A must see!

I have just watched a live broadcast of the RSC Twelfth Night in Belfast’s QFT. I studied this for O Level in 1983 and got a C. How I wish I’d seen this play back then. Suddenly it all makes sense. Whilst everyone is raving about Ade Edmondson (and he was amazing) I just want Dinita Gohil to know that her performance as Viola was stellar. I loved it and now I truly understand everything. Well done to everyone in the cast, crew and orchestra!

I attended the relaxed performance of A Christmas Carol at Stratford with a group of residence from my Grandmother’s care home this week. The RSC staff were fantastic. They showed endless patience and care to ensure it was an enjoyable experience for all. Every credit goes to the performers and production staff who gave a wonderful performance with the extra challenges of noise and movement form the audience. My 95 year old Grandmother loved it, as did a lot of the school children present. There was a lovely balance of humour and meaning reflected in all aspects of the performance. Thank you RSC.

Have just seen the RSC's production of The Duchess of Malfi at The Swan ... am emotionally drained, exhausted, overwhelmed and utterly in awe of the cast and production team. The music was brilliantly moody and evocative, the singing was simply stunning, the dance/movement routines were breathtaking ... I'm running out of superlatives. Aretha Ayeh's voice ... Loved her singing. Joan Iyiola's voice in the Lament .... oh I was in tears, and her performance throughout was riveting. The lunatics ... brilliant. Alexander Cobb's voice .... so powerful ... and his performance was also riveting ... The bull ... marvellous ... the bloodbath ... brilliantly executed. I felt that the applause rendered was insufficient reflection of the power of the performances given by the cast. Superb. 'Nuff said!

Had a wonderful time at Stratford yesterday. Started off with the unwrapped Q& A session with Tim Samuels and John Macauly performing the workshop scenes. A very interesting tutorial indeed.

This was followed by the matinee show of Macbeth yesterday. Wonderfully sinister with the 3 witches; a child's voice always sounds haunting. Wonderful to see the 2 leads; Christopher Eccleston and Niamh Cusack performing this. For an RSC debut; Christopher Eccleston did a superb job. The first Shakespeare play I learnt at school was macbeth and in that same year got to see let him have it with Chris Eccleston as Derek Bentley. It was also brilliant to see Niamh perform her role without having to hide or cover her Irish background; she played her role well and did not hold anything back. This in fact went for all the cast.



For me though; out of all respect for the actors in the show; the one who stole it for me was Michael Hodgson as the porter. He was on the stage from the moment I took my seat in A1 (so was right next to him) and stayed there throughout the show in every scene as an observer. I really hope to see this again or at least hope it gets released on DVD. Anyone who has not seen it yet - go whilst there are still tickets left and don't forget it will be in London from October through to January.

Came to see Twelfth Night last night with my three daughters. I have never been to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre before and I was amazed at the fantastic experience I had. The production was brilliant with superb actors performing a wonderful story and all staff so friendly and helpful. One of the best nights of my life. Thank you so much.

I’ve seen many productions of this play over the past 40 years , all varying in quality ,some brilliant , many good, some laughable . It lends itself brilliantly to a huge range of interpretations and will resonate with audiences across time , geography and political perspective . Seeing this on the screen allowed me to focus on Shakespeare's language more than ever before. The key speeches , some very moving , were given with intelligence , passion and respect . The witches , the clock , the upstairs window , the harmless Porter who gradually revealed himself to be so much more , could have been irritating but they gave the piece a new dimension . I thought the acting was superb and the cast created characters that were sympathetic and challenging . Yes at times it was uncomfortable but isn’t that what RSC always does well ? This great play will always be there for another creative team to work with in a different way .

I have just returned from seeing Macbeth beamed live to my local cinema. My daughter and I enjoyed it very much. I would definitely recommend the live screenings to anyone who wouldn't be able to get to Stratford, a very different feel from watching an ordinary film. The witches had a sinister quality about them which developed as the play progressed, although at first I was surprised at their age and outfits. To be honest, every production of Macbeth I have seen has left me with a feeling that the witches weren't 'witchy ' enough. Impressed with the filming and sound, despite some crackling every time Macduff spoke in one scene. Looking forward to seeing more live performances -a brilliant idea!

I attended a local Live Broadcast of Macbeth last night, Although I really couldn't get away from the idea that I'd stumbled into an episode of Dr Who -dry ice, weird humour and possibly three little aliens?-I will admit that I did enjoy the production which seemed to have my attention from start to finish.All the leads were,in my view,well played.I particularly liked Niamh Cusack's Lady Macbeth, full of energy and angst.Moreover, two teenagers-not used to the theatre but coming along for a bit of GCSE revision- were similarly transfixed.A big thanks to the RSC for staging this and including interviews with cast, directors, etc-all very useful for this summers exams!Finally, let me say that a production which will inevitably draw a lot of youngsters has made a wise-and some would say brave-decision- to play down both the occultic and violent content which is so exploited in our modern day and give us characters more psychologically damaged than totally evil.Well done, all.Looking forward to Romeo and Juliet!

Watching Macbeth in the cinema. Sound is awful. Almost inaudible. Witches are miscast and are inaudible also. The power of these scenes is completely lost.

We’re getting good views of the cast but the whole experience is marred by poor sound. Very disappointed.

Romeo and Juliet, new production. Bit underwhelmed, sorry! Nice idea to set it amongst warring knife gangs, but hardly original (West Side Story, anyone?). Drab set and costumes made it hard to distinguish one gang from the other; not great if you just want to sit back and enjoy the play. Too much gabbling - what happened to the pregnant pause, eh? Michael Hodgson (Capulet) gets it beautifully but few others do. Director Emma Whyman seems so keen to address “new ways of seeing women, men and complexity” that she forgets the old ways are valid too: less shouty stuff, more raw emotion over love, teenage angst, death. Great performance from Charlotte Josephine as Mercutio - electrifying. Bally Gill is a very dishy Romeo, Ishia Bennison perfect as Nurse.

Saw Macbeth the other day and have only just got over it....very poor. We frequently visit Stratford and often feel so privileged to only have to travel a little over an hour to enjoy the best theatre and acting in the world....sorry, but this production was well below par and sub-standard in so many ways I can't begin to list the defects.

RSC...think long and hard and stop pushing the boundaries to the ridiculous....William will be turning in his grave.

We watched the Macbeth performance, live, on screen in Shrewsbury. Christopher Ecclestone was very good as usual, but I want to mention 2 other actors who really stood out... Donna Banya and Michael Hodgeson. Donna' s ability to express so much when she had few words was outstanding. Michael's comedic timing was superb. I took my teenage son to the performance to help him with his GCSE and he loved it too. Thank you for a great night.

Tonight’s performance of Macbeth was beyond brilliant! By far the best production of this play I’ve ever seen . A master stroke having the girls play the witches , chilling. Niamh was a splendidly evil Lady M. and McDuffs reaction at hearing about the death of of his family was soooo well delivered it brought tears to my eyes.

The whole feel of it was sublime due not only to the fine performances from the marvellous cast but the special effects, costume, lighting and stirring incidental music.

Totally surprised to find my neck hair stand on end and goose bumps on my arms at the climax . Keep on making Shakespeare relevant and full of twisty little nuances, well done a most excellent night. I would have gladly sat and watched it all again.

Oh my ... you have to see this show ‘Follies of Mrs Rich’ .. it was so brilliantly funny. Well done to all the cast. It was my Wife Sylvia and my 33rd Wedding Anniversary and we could not have chosen a more fabulous way of celebrating it ... still chuckling a day later xxx �

Me and my husband have been coming for a number of years now and have never been disappointed. Each production has had me completely gripped from start to finish, the rome season was especially brilliant. We brought our 2 teenagers for the first time to see twelfth night this week and they loved it, we're already booked in for the whole summer season. We always find all the staff very friendly and polite and are always on hand to answer any questions.

Would highly recommend the tour too, very interesting!

Loved this production! The interpretation was gripping and the presentation moving. Effects complimented the themes and were thought provoking, breathing new life into this popular play. My son said it was simply the best thing he had ever seen. We will be talking about this for a long time! Huge success - well done RSC!

I just wanted to say that not only is the RSC a fantastic performance venue it's front of house staff are wonderful. They are trained to perfection and have communication and empathy.

Thank you so much for your kindness when I became ill during the amazing performance of Tamburlaine.

I'm still seething that I missed the ending and hope I didn't make too much of a kerfuffle �

You should all be highly commended for the work you do in front of house and behind the scenes.

I just wanted to say a very big thank you to Justine. She gave me wonderful 5 star service today in the Box Office. I rang hoping to secure tickets for a matinee performance of Romeo & Juliet that looked like it had sold out. I explained that I was hoping to bring my son, who is studying this play as part of his GCSE English exam that he sits in May.



Justine couldn't have been more helpful. She worked hard to find me 2 tickets. Her care and courtesy were refreshingly admirable, and she was a complete joy to deal with. I now have one very happy and excited 16 year old son.....Dad is pretty chuffed as well.



Very easy to think of the RSC as the actors, directors, set and costume designers etc, but I wanted to call out how wonderful your support staff are elsewhere. Justine is a great credit to you.



I do hope you will pass my comments on to her with my warmest thanks and appreciation.

I just saw the Mischief Festival with #We Are Arrested and Day of the Living. These are both fabulous plays. The first portraying a Turkish journalist exiled for exposing the truth and the second a wonderful production about disappeared Mexican students and a blatant government cover up. The songs and life and creativity in Day of the Living is awesome. A must see!

I have just watched a live broadcast of the RSC Twelfth Night in Belfast’s QFT. I studied this for O Level in 1983 and got a C. How I wish I’d seen this play back then. Suddenly it all makes sense. Whilst everyone is raving about Ade Edmondson (and he was amazing) I just want Dinita Gohil to know that her performance as Viola was stellar. I loved it and now I truly understand everything. Well done to everyone in the cast, crew and orchestra!

I attended the relaxed performance of A Christmas Carol at Stratford with a group of residence from my Grandmother’s care home this week. The RSC staff were fantastic. They showed endless patience and care to ensure it was an enjoyable experience for all. Every credit goes to the performers and production staff who gave a wonderful performance with the extra challenges of noise and movement form the audience. My 95 year old Grandmother loved it, as did a lot of the school children present. There was a lovely balance of humour and meaning reflected in all aspects of the performance. Thank you RSC.

Have just seen the RSC's production of The Duchess of Malfi at The Swan ... am emotionally drained, exhausted, overwhelmed and utterly in awe of the cast and production team. The music was brilliantly moody and evocative, the singing was simply stunning, the dance/movement routines were breathtaking ... I'm running out of superlatives. Aretha Ayeh's voice ... Loved her singing. Joan Iyiola's voice in the Lament .... oh I was in tears, and her performance throughout was riveting. The lunatics ... brilliant. Alexander Cobb's voice .... so powerful ... and his performance was also riveting ... The bull ... marvellous ... the bloodbath ... brilliantly executed. I felt that the applause rendered was insufficient reflection of the power of the performances given by the cast. Superb. 'Nuff said!

Had a wonderful time at Stratford yesterday. Started off with the unwrapped Q& A session with Tim Samuels and John Macauly performing the workshop scenes. A very interesting tutorial indeed.

This was followed by the matinee show of Macbeth yesterday. Wonderfully sinister with the 3 witches; a child's voice always sounds haunting. Wonderful to see the 2 leads; Christopher Eccleston and Niamh Cusack performing this. For an RSC debut; Christopher Eccleston did a superb job. The first Shakespeare play I learnt at school was macbeth and in that same year got to see let him have it with Chris Eccleston as Derek Bentley. It was also brilliant to see Niamh perform her role without having to hide or cover her Irish background; she played her role well and did not hold anything back. This in fact went for all the cast.



For me though; out of all respect for the actors in the show; the one who stole it for me was Michael Hodgson as the porter. He was on the stage from the moment I took my seat in A1 (so was right next to him) and stayed there throughout the show in every scene as an observer. I really hope to see this again or at least hope it gets released on DVD. Anyone who has not seen it yet - go whilst there are still tickets left and don't forget it will be in London from October through to January.

Came to see Twelfth Night last night with my three daughters. I have never been to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre before and I was amazed at the fantastic experience I had. The production was brilliant with superb actors performing a wonderful story and all staff so friendly and helpful. One of the best nights of my life. Thank you so much.

I’ve seen many productions of this play over the past 40 years , all varying in quality ,some brilliant , many good, some laughable . It lends itself brilliantly to a huge range of interpretations and will resonate with audiences across time , geography and political perspective . Seeing this on the screen allowed me to focus on Shakespeare's language more than ever before. The key speeches , some very moving , were given with intelligence , passion and respect . The witches , the clock , the upstairs window , the harmless Porter who gradually revealed himself to be so much more , could have been irritating but they gave the piece a new dimension . I thought the acting was superb and the cast created characters that were sympathetic and challenging . Yes at times it was uncomfortable but isn’t that what RSC always does well ? This great play will always be there for another creative team to work with in a different way .

I have just returned from seeing Macbeth beamed live to my local cinema. My daughter and I enjoyed it very much. I would definitely recommend the live screenings to anyone who wouldn't be able to get to Stratford, a very different feel from watching an ordinary film. The witches had a sinister quality about them which developed as the play progressed, although at first I was surprised at their age and outfits. To be honest, every production of Macbeth I have seen has left me with a feeling that the witches weren't 'witchy ' enough. Impressed with the filming and sound, despite some crackling every time Macduff spoke in one scene. Looking forward to seeing more live performances -a brilliant idea!

I attended a local Live Broadcast of Macbeth last night, Although I really couldn't get away from the idea that I'd stumbled into an episode of Dr Who -dry ice, weird humour and possibly three little aliens?-I will admit that I did enjoy the production which seemed to have my attention from start to finish.All the leads were,in my view,well played.I particularly liked Niamh Cusack's Lady Macbeth, full of energy and angst.Moreover, two teenagers-not used to the theatre but coming along for a bit of GCSE revision- were similarly transfixed.A big thanks to the RSC for staging this and including interviews with cast, directors, etc-all very useful for this summers exams!Finally, let me say that a production which will inevitably draw a lot of youngsters has made a wise-and some would say brave-decision- to play down both the occultic and violent content which is so exploited in our modern day and give us characters more psychologically damaged than totally evil.Well done, all.Looking forward to Romeo and Juliet!

Watching Macbeth in the cinema. Sound is awful. Almost inaudible. Witches are miscast and are inaudible also. The power of these scenes is completely lost.

We’re getting good views of the cast but the whole experience is marred by poor sound. Very disappointed.

Romeo and Juliet, new production. Bit underwhelmed, sorry! Nice idea to set it amongst warring knife gangs, but hardly original (West Side Story, anyone?). Drab set and costumes made it hard to distinguish one gang from the other; not great if you just want to sit back and enjoy the play. Too much gabbling - what happened to the pregnant pause, eh? Michael Hodgson (Capulet) gets it beautifully but few others do. Director Emma Whyman seems so keen to address “new ways of seeing women, men and complexity” that she forgets the old ways are valid too: less shouty stuff, more raw emotion over love, teenage angst, death. Great performance from Charlotte Josephine as Mercutio - electrifying. Bally Gill is a very dishy Romeo, Ishia Bennison perfect as Nurse.

Saw Macbeth the other day and have only just got over it....very poor. We frequently visit Stratford and often feel so privileged to only have to travel a little over an hour to enjoy the best theatre and acting in the world....sorry, but this production was well below par and sub-standard in so many ways I can't begin to list the defects.

RSC...think long and hard and stop pushing the boundaries to the ridiculous....William will be turning in his grave.