York Theatre Royal has unveiled an absolutely thrilling lineup for its upcoming season of productions! Alongside the eagerly anticipated collaboration with Wise Children on “North by Northwest,” adapted and directed by the brilliant Emma Rice, and the return of Gary Oldman to the stage in Samuel Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape,” there’s so much more to look forward to. They are delighted to welcome back the beloved production of E. Nesbit’s “The Railway Children,” adapted by Mike Kenny, as well as a major new community project, “His Last Report,” which delves into the life of York-born Seebohm Rowntree.
“The Railway Children” will be presented in partnership with Bradford 2025 and staged at Keighley & Oxenhope stations, conceived and directed by Damian Cruden—what an exciting way to celebrate Bradford’s UK City of Culture status! And come summer 2025, York Theatre Royal will team up with Riding Lights Theatre Company for a large-scale community project focusing on social reformer Seebohm Rowntree. This play promises to be a powerful narrative told through voices from York’s past and present. Local residents are encouraged to get involved either on stage or behind the scenes—details on how you can participate will be announced soon!
But that’s not all! The visiting programme is packed with gems like RSC’s “First Encounters: The Tempest” (24-25 Feb), Matthew Bourne’s captivating “The Midnight Bell” (4–7 June), John Godber’s delightful “Do I Love You?” (10-14 June), and “Kim’s Convenience” (16-21 June). Plus, don’t miss another vibrant Old Paintshop Season in our Studio featuring jazz, cabaret, and burlesque performances. It’s going to be an unforgettable season brimming with creativity and excitement—mark your calendars now!
CEO Paul Crewes said today, “We are so proud of the programme of produced work we have on our stage for 2025. Following on from our production of Aladdin this Christmas, we look forward to collaborating with Emma Rice and the Wise Children team on North by Northwest, adapted from the great Alfred Hitchcock film. In spring, we welcome Gary Oldman back to the stage where he started his career in our own production of Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece Krapp’s Last Tape. We also see the return of our beautiful co-production of The Storm Whale in the Studio. Our final piece of produced work is our large-scale community production His Last Report with Riding Lights Theatre Company, where we will work with hundreds of local people to bring to life a local story with a national impact.
We are thrilled to welcome world-class dance performances from Matthew Bourne and New Adventures who are bringing us The Midnight Bell, and the Jasmin Vardimon company who are celebrating their 25th anniversary. The RSC are back with their First Encounters project The Tempest and over the summer we have John Godber’s Do I Love You? and Kim’s Convenience starring Ins Choi. Local York companies including York Settlement Community Players will be staging work in our Studio and York Opera are back with the wonderful Tales of Hoffman in our Main House.”
Priority booking for YTR members opens on 25 November at 1pm with general onsale on 30 November at 1pm. Please note, North by Northwest, The Railway Children and Krapp’s Last Tape are already on sale to the public.
York Theatre Royal and Evolution Productions
ALADDIN
By Paul Hendy
3 December 2024 – 5 January 2025
Press night: 5 December
Directed by Juliet Forster
Cbeebies and CBBC’s Evie Pickerill, brings her sparkle and flair as Spirit of the Ring in this year’s York Theatre Royal pantomime.
York favourite, Robin Simpson (Dame Trott in Jack and the Beanstalk, Mrs Smee in All New Adventures of Peter Pan and Manky in Cinderella) will be returning to play Dame Dolly; and Paul Hawkyard (Captain Hook in All New Adventures of Peter Pan and Mardy in Cinderella) is returning for his third pantomime at YTR as the villainous Ivan Tobebooed! Sario Solomon (Let It Shine, Grease) stars as the titular hero in his York debut, alongside Emily Tang and Tommy Carmichael.
Aladdin is written by Paul Hendy and directed by Juliet Forster – the creative team behind Jack and the Beanstalk.
Family tickets from £81.
A Wise Children, York Theatre Royal, HOME Manchester and Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse co-production
ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S
NORTH BY NORTHWEST
Adapted and directed by Emma Rice
Press night: 26 March
It would be strange, would it not, if, in a city of seven million people, one man were never mistaken for another…
But that is exactly what happens to Roger Thornhill, reluctant hero of North by Northwest, when a mistimed phone call to his mother lands him smack bang in the middle of a Cold War conspiracy. Now he’s on the run, dodging spies, airplanes and a femme fatale who might not be all she seems.
Emma Rice takes on film legend Alfred Hitchcock in this riotously funny reworking that turns the original thriller on its head. With just six shape-shifting performers, a fabulous ’50s soundtrack and a LOT of hats, this dazzling production plays with the heart, mind and soul. Join us for a night of glamour, romance, jeopardy and a liberal sprinkling of tender truths.
Based on the Turner Entertainment Co. Film North by Northwest
Produced by special arrangement with Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures and Kay & McLean Productions
North by Northwest is a 1959 film, produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, and James Mason.
Emma Rice is the Artistic Director of Wise Children and is an internationally respected theatre-maker and director. For Wise Children she has adapted and directed The Buddha of Suburbia, Blue Beard, The Little Matchgirl and Happier Tales, Wuthering Heights, Bagdad Café, Angela Carter’s Wise Children, Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers and Romantics Anonymous. As Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe: Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Little Matchgirl (and Other Happier Tales). Rice worked for Kneehigh as an actor, director and Artistic Director, creating critically acclaimed productions including: The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips, The Wild Bride, The Red Shoes, Cymbeline (in association with RSC), A Matter of Life and Death (in association with National Theatre), Brief Encounter (in association with David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers Productions), Don John (in association with the RSC and Bristol Old Vic), Wah! Wah! Girls (in association with Sadler’s Wells and Theatre Royal Stratford East for World Stages), and Steptoe and Son. She received the Outstanding Contribution to British Theatre award at the 2019 UK Theatre Awards.
A YORK THEATRE ROYAL PRODUCTION
Gary Oldman in
KRAPP’S LAST TAPE
by Samuel Beckett
14 April – Sat 17 May 2025
Press performances: 7.30pm on 23, 24, 25 April, 5pm & 7.30pm 26 April
Reviews embargoed until: 11:59pm Sat 26 April
Tickets from £25
Each year, on his birthday, Krapp records a new tape reflecting on the year gone by.
On his 69th birthday, Krapp, now a lonely man, is ready with a bottle of wine, a banana and his tape recorder. Listening back to a recording he made as a young man, Krapp must face the hopes of his past self.
Gary Oldman returns to the stage in Beckett’s one-act masterpiece at York Theatre Royal in spring 2025.
Samuel Beckett (1906 – 1989) was an Irish writer, dramatist and poet. He wrote in both English and French, and his principal works for the stage also include Endgame, Krapp’s Last Tape and Waiting for Godot. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.
Academy Award, BAFTA, SAG, BIFA and Golden Globe winner, Gary Oldman returns to York Theatre Royal where he began his professional career in 1979. He worked in the theatre for several years, from 1985 through 1989 working extensively at the Royal Court Theatre.
With a career spanning over 30 years, winning acclaim, and every award a screen actor can win, appearing in record breaking blockbusters, playing iconic characters, Oldman is not only regarded as one of the foremost cinema greats of all time, but is one of the highest grossing actors in film history.
His many iconic screen appearances include Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour – for which he received the 2018 Academy Award as the Best Actor, the BAFTA Award as Best Actor, and also the Golden Globe, SAG Award and the Palm Desert Award, among many others; Sirius Black in the Harry Potter franchise, Commissioner Jim Gordon in Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.
Other acclaimed and memorable screen appearances include Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Academy Award and BAFTA nominations), Mank (Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations), Oppenheimer, The Book of Eli, Meantime, The Firm, Sid and Nancy, Prick Up Your Ears, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, State Of Grace, JFK, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Romeo Is Bleeding, True Romance, Leon/The Professional, The Fifth Element, Immortal Beloved, and Dawn of the Planet Of The Apes, among many others.
Directors he has worked with include Stephen Frears, Oliver Stone, Frances Ford Coppola, Luc Besson, Alfonso Curon, Chris Nolan, Tony Scott, Ridley Scott, Steven Soderbergh, David Fincher, and Paulo Sorrentino.
In 1995 Oldman and producing partner Douglas Urbanski founded a production company, which produced Oldman’s screenwriting and directorial debut, the highly acclaimed Nil By Mouth, which won nine of seventeen major awards for which it was nominated. It was selected to open the main competition for the 1997 50th Anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, for which Kathy Burke won Best Actress. The same year Oldman won the prestigious Channel Four Director’s Prize at the Edinburgh Film Festival, in addition to winning the British Academy Award (shared with Douglas Urbanski) for Best Film and also the BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay, which he also wrote.
Currently Oldman appears in the hugely acclaimed hit Apple TV+ series, Slow Horses, for which he has been nominated for the BAFTA, the SAG Award and a Golden Globe.
E. Nesbit’s
THE RAILWAY CHILDREN
Adapted by Mike Kenny
Conceived and directed by Damian Cruden
Presented by Bradford 2025 and York Theatre Royal
in partnership with the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway for Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture
at Keighley & Oxenhope stations
16 July – 7 September 2025
Mike Kenny’s enchanting stage adaptation of E Nesbit’s classic novel has won thousands of admirers since it premiered in 2008. Now, for the first time, Bradford 2025 is taking York Theatre Royal’s Olivier Award-winning production for a ride along the iconic Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, familiar to millions from the film adaptations of The Railway Children.
Exclusively for the UK City of Culture, the show begins when you board a steam train at Keighley, then travel the full length of this historic railway. When you reach the end of the line at Oxenhope, you’ll find a purpose-built auditorium within the station’s Engine Shed – and a new version of this classic production, which tells the story of three children forced to move from London to Yorkshire after their father is falsely imprisoned.
A York Theatre Royal Production in association with Riding Lights Theatre Company
HIS LAST REPORT
By Misha Duncan-Barry and Bridget Foreman
19 July – 3 August
Press night: 23 Jul
Directed by Juliet Forster and Paul Birch
“What we have here are human stories – unforgettable stories of peoples’ lives…”
York 1900’s
Pioneering social reformer Seebohm Rowntree embarks on a groundbreaking investigation into the harsh realities of poverty. His findings illuminate the struggles of the working class, laying the foundation for the welfare state and sparking a movement that will redefine life as we know it…
Fast forward to present day York.
Where amid the challenges of dwindling public funding, budget cuts and rising inequality, the cycle of poverty persists.
What is Seebohm’s real legacy as the Ministry begins to dismantle the very structures he championed?
Told through the voices of York’s residents, both past and present, this is Seebohm’s last, and most pressing report.
Join us in summer 2025 for a powerful play that delves into the life and legacy of one of York’s most influential figures: Seebohm Rowntree.
York Theatre Royal presents a stunning community production that brings together a large-scale cast and a live choir, to tell a local story with national impact.
His Last Report is the latest of York Theatre Royal’s celebrated community productions, made in association with Riding Lights Theatre and with partners Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Garfield Weston Foundation and Crombie Wilkinson
STUDIO
A York Theatre Royal co-production with Engine House, Little Angel and The Marlowe, Canterbury
THE STORM WHALE
Based on the award-winning books The Storm Whale and The Storm Whale in Winter by Benji Davies
Written and Directed by Matt Aston
14 – 19 April
Noi lives with his Dad and six cats by the sea… One summer, while his Dad was busy at work, Noi rescued a little whale that washed up on the beach. A friendship began that changed their lives forever.
The following winter his Dad takes one last trip in his fishing boat. Noi is alone once more and longs to see his friend again. He waits and watches, watches and waits…
Will it take another storm to bring them back together?
Benji Davies’ tender and heart-warming stories of loneliness, love and courage are brought to life as one magical piece of theatre from the team behind Grandad’s Island
Box Office: 01904 623568