Beale and Agyeman return to the RSC

Published: 30 January 2025
Reporter: Steve Orme

Simon Russell Beale will return to the RSC in Titus Andronicus
Freema Agyeman will play Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing Credit: Helen Murray

Simon Russell Beale and Freema Agyeman will return to the Royal Shakespeare Company in its 2025 summer season.

Beale, who has often acted with the RSC, last appeared in 2016 as Prospero in The Tempest. He will take the title role in a new production of Shakespeare’s bloodiest tragedy, Titus Andronicus, in the Swan Theatre.

Agyeman, who played Olivia in Twelfth Night in Stratford in 2024, will play Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, which will be set in “the glossy world of professional football”.

Looking further ahead, the RSC will stage Tom Wells’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The BFG as its 2025 festive family show.

RSC co-artistic directors Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey said, “over the past 12 months our guiding principle has been to seek out the most exciting directors, writers and actors working in the UK and internationally, and ask them which stories they feel a passionate desire to tell.

“Our 2025–26 season will bring together an international roster of creative talent, where the works of William Shakespeare stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the most compelling voices in modern playwriting.

“Alongside five new productions from the pen of our house playwright, we’ll also celebrate the diverse ways in which Shakespeare’s characters and stories continue to prove fertile ground for reinvention and rediscovery, with the world première of Hamlet Hail to the Thief, a frenetic distillation of the Hamlet story, set alongside the soundtrack of Radiohead’s album Hail to the Thief, and the European première of James Ijames’s tragicomic family drama Fat Ham.”

In the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, the season kicks off with Much Ado About Nothing, with Nick Blood making his RSC debut as Benedick. Michael Longhurst will direct the production, which will run from Saturday 12 April until Saturday 24 May.

Co-produced by Factory International and the RSC, Christine Jones and Steven Hoggett’s adaptation of Hamlet Hail to the Thief will run from Wednesday 4 until Saturday 28 June. Yaël Farber, who directed King Lear in 2024 and Macbeth in 2023 for London’s Almeida Theatre, will make her RSC debut with The Winter’s Tale from Saturday 12 July until Saturday 30 August. Emily Burns, who directed Love’s Labour’s Lost at the RSC in 2024, will return with a new staging of Measure for Measure from Saturday 13 September until Saturday 25 October.

A Royal Shakespeare Company, Chichester Festival Theatre and Roald Dahl Story Company production, The BFG will be directed by Daniel Evans—his directorial debut for the RSC—from Tuesday 25 November until Saturday 31 January 2026.

In the Swan Theatre, Max Webster will direct Simon Russell Beale, RSC associate artist Emma Fielding and Natey Jones in Titus Andronicus from Thursday 17 April until Saturday 7 June. Rose Leslie will appear in a new version of W Somerset Maugham’s The Constant Wife, adapted by Laura Wade and directed by Tamara Harvey, from Friday 20 June until Saturday 2 August.

Originally produced Off-Broadway by The Public Theater and National Black Theatre, James Ijames’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Fat Ham will have its European première and will be directed by Sideeq Heard from Friday 15 August until Saturday 13 September.

In The Other Place, as previously announced, Sarah Kane’s final play 4.48 Psychosis will run from Thursday 10 until Sunday 27 July. Joanna Bowman will direct a new, 80-minute version of Shakespeare’s “gloriously silly comedy of love and friendship” The Two Gentlemen of Verona from Monday 4 until Sunday 31 August.

The RSC has also announced that Hamlet, which will run in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre from Saturday 8 February until Saturday 29 March, will go on a tour of theatres across England in 2026. Rupert Goold’s production will visit towns and cities in the spring including Truro, Bradford, Norwich, Nottingham, Blackpool, Newcastle, York and Canterbury.

In autumn 2025, more young people will get to experience their first taste of Shakespeare in their classrooms and communities with First Encounters: King Lear, which will be directed by Justine Themen. The 12-week tour of schools, theatres and community venues will begin in September.

Related listings

  • Titus Andronicus - William Shakespeare (Royal Shakespeare Company)

  • Much Ado About Nothing - William Shakespeare (Royal Shakespeare Company)

  • Hamlet Hail To The Thief - William Shakespeare, adapted by Christine Jones with Steven Hoggett, music by Radiohead (Factory International, the Royal Shakespeare Company and ATC Experience, Nate Koch and Vivek J.Tiwary for TEG+)

  • The Winter’s Tale - William Shakespeare (Royal Shakespeare Company)

  • Measure for Measure - William Shakespeare (Royal Shakespeare Company)

  • The BFG - Roald Dahl, adapted by Tom Wells (Royal Shakespeare Company, Chichester Festival Theatre and Roald Dahl Story Company)

  • The Constant Wife - W Somerset Maugham in a new version by Laura Wade (Royal Shakespeare Company)

  • Fat Ham - James Ijames (Royal Shakespeare Company with No Guarantees Productions, Public Theater Productions and Rashad V. Chambers)

  • 4.48 Psychosis - Sarah Kane (Royal Shakespeare Company & Royal Court Theatre)

  • The Two Gentlemen of Verona - William Shakespeare (Royal Shakespeare Company)

  • Hamlet - William Shakespeare (Royal Shakespeare Company)

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