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The National Theatre has just announced its 2026 spring season of four plays, a heavy-on-the classics affair that kicks off with a rare revival in the small Dorman Theatre, which is usually used for new writing only.
In fact Anthony Lau’s revival of Terence Rattigan’s Man and Boy (Jan 30-Mar 14 2026) is the odd one out of the season in more ways than one – it’s actually new NT boss Indhu Rubasingham’s first piece of programming in the Dorfman, due to emergency upgrade works delaying her predecessor Rufus Norris’s final shows there, and begins its run some time before the other shows. The play is a drama about Gregor Antonescu (Ben Daniels), a ruthless international financier who takes refuge in the New York apartment of his estranged son Basil (Laurie Kynaston) as he attempts to regroup and bounce back from the ravages of the Great Depression.
The rest of the season kicks off in March, with the biggest Olivier theatre playing host to a new version of Maxim Gorky’s Summerfolk (Mar 6-Apr 29 2026), a drama about a group of Russian bourgeois enjoying a frivolous summer as storm clouds gather around them. Adapted by the acclaimed playwright Nina Raine with her brother Moses (whose Russian bona fides are excellent, being descended from the great novelist Boris Pasternak) it’ll be directed by NT deputy Robert Hastie, who recently did the honours for Hamlet, with casting TBC.
The starriest show of the season is a revival of Christopher Hampton’s enduring adaptation of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s classic French novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Mar 21-Jun 6 2026, pictured), in an extra long run production directed by the great Marianne Elliott that will star Monica Barbaro, Lesley Manville and Aidan Turner as sexy, scheming aristocrats.
Finally, the early start for Man and Boy means time for a second Dorfman show, in spring proper. The Authenticator (Mar 26-May 9 2026) is a ‘gripping gothic psychological thriller’ from veteran playwright Winsome Pinnock that follows a pair of academic called in by an eccentric aristocrat to authenticate a shocks stash of hidden diaries. Rakie Ayola, Sylvestra Le Touzel and Cherrelle Skeete star in Miranda Cromwell’s production.
Tickets for all four shows will go on sale October 23.
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