Discover the highlights of Indhu Rubasingham's first National Theatre season

From Paul Mescal, Stormzy, and Derry Girls reunited to The Jungle Book and a musical that will fill you with pride.

It’s a brave new world at the National Theatre. The venue’s incoming artistic director Indhu Rubasingham has revealed her keenly anticipated debut season, and it’s a corker of an opening statement, from a host of fascinating names (including Paul Mescal and Stormzy!) to numerous world premieres and the popular return of rep.

Rubasingham, the first woman and first person of colour to hold this prestigious role, has already energised the industry with her bold ideas, and we’ll get to see the results soon: her programme officially begins in September, and she has announced shows through to 2027.

With the slogan “Bringing the world to the National Theatre, taking the National Theatre to the world”, there’s plenty to get excited about in this ambitious season. Check out the highlights of this new era at the National.

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Stormzy is in the building

Granted we don’t know yet exactly what this project entails, but it’s still a major get. The electrifying, multi-award-winning rapper has agreed to collaborate with Rubasingham on a new production which she’s confirmed will (unsurprisingly) involve music, although the rest is under wraps for now…

What we do know is that this is definitely the kind of name who will bring new audiences into the theatre – always a welcome development. As much as we love seeing classics at the National (and there is plenty from the canon in this season too), it’s just as important to build the next generation of artists and theatregoers.

So is Paul Mescal

Among a host of exciting celebrity castings. Mescal is making his National Theatre debut in two shows: Tom Murphy’s A Whistle in the Dark and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, the latter reuniting him with director-of-the-moment Rebecca Frecknall. Both feature dysfunctional families, and will likely be big sellers on the strength of Mescal’s presence – quite rightly, as he was phenomenal in A Streetcar Named Desire.

Marianne Elliot is back at the National to direct another starry revival: Lesley Manville, Aidan Turner and Monica Barbaro playing sexual power games in the hot and heavy Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Plus Black Panther standout Leticia Wright makes her NT debut in thriller The Story, helmed by artistic associate Clint Dyer, and Dominic Cooke directs Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9.

Beware the Bacchae

This is the first official production of Rubasingham’s inaugural programme, and it looks like a blistering one. Actor Nima Taleghani, best known for his work with Jamie Lloyd, is adapting Euripides’ play – which features the god of theatre – into an anarchic new rhyme- and spoken-word-based show (Lloyd’s Cyrano might be an interesting comparison point).

This is the first ever debut play on the Olivier stage, so it’s history-making but also a big risk – let’s hope it pays off! Rubasingham will direct, and the show has a fantastic company: it’s led by James McArdle, Clare Perkins and Ukweli Roach, with design by Robert Jones, score by DJ Walde, and choreography by leading hip-hop theatre artist Kate Prince.

It’s a Derry Girls reunion

Praise be: Clare and Sister Michael are together again as Nicola Coughlan (also now an international star thanks to Bridgerton) and Siobhán McSweeney, alongside Éanna Hardwicke and Marty Rea, lead John Millington Synge’s great Irish drama The Playboy of the Western World.

We last saw McSweeney at the National in the wonderful Dancing at Lughnasa, while Coughlan has been absent from the stage since the 2018 Donmar production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, so it’s great to have them both back. Caitríona McLaughlin directs this eye-catching revival.

Shakespeare and tigers

Oddly, we haven’t had a Hamlet at the National since Rory Kinnear in 2010. The Bard’s sweet prince will likely get an audacious reading by the brilliant director Robert Hastie, Rubasingham’s new deputy, and Sri Lankan actor Hiran Abeysekera, an Olivier winner for Life of Pi, will don the ruff (or not) in his intriguing production.

Rubasingham has made a point of championing great Asian talent in her season (the NT has a new partnership with the Bagri Foundation), so we’ll also see Anupama Chandrasekhar adapting Kipling’s The Jungle Book in a version that is strongly rooted in India. That promises to be wonderful family entertainment, as does the returning Ballet Shoes, a gorgeous show at the National last Christmas.

Double the fun

There have been frequent calls for the National to reinstitute its repertory system, which means the same company of actors performing multiple plays on alternating days. It’s a way for those actors to show their range by inhabiting a variety of characters, and it means more choices for audiences, plus you often make interesting links between shows.

Happily, Rubasingham’s season will see a return to rep in the Lyttelton auditorium for the first time since 2020. It’s the Mescal-led plays, A Whistle in the Dark and Death of a Salesman, that kick things off, with another pair of shows to be announced soon – so watch this space…

Take pride in musicals

The National has an impressive track record with musical theatre, and indeed Rufus Norris’s outgoing season features two strong examples: a revival of his ground-breaking London Road as well as Stephen Sondheim’s final work, Here We Are. Rubasingham is picking up that baton and running with it.

After a long wait, the 2014 movie Pride – based on the extraordinary true story of how striking miners and LGBTQ+ activists joined forces – is becoming a stage musical, with Matthew Warchus once again directing, Stephen Beresford supplying the book and lyrics, and music by Christopher Nightingale, Josh Cohen and DJ Walde. Solidarity forever!

Main image credit: Stormzy (Photo by Adama Jalloh)