Category Royal Exchange

WE WERE TOLD THERE WAS DANCING is a kaleidoscope of memories, people and experiences charting the changing attitudes to gay rights

Following the sell-out successes of THE FACTORY and NOTHING, the Royal Exchange Theatre’s award-winning Young Company return with a new original piece charting the shifting and stalling attitudes to gay rights.

WE WERE TOLD THERE WAS DANCING invites the audience to travel through space and time to experience what it’s like to fall in love with someone of the same...

PERSUASION is a fresh, bold and enjoyable reinterpretation of Austen’s final masterpiece

Following the bold reinterpretation of Aeschylus’s THE SUPPLIANT WOMAN, Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre’s Spring/Summer season continues to reshape and breathe new life into classic texts with its latest production of Jane Austen’s PERSUASION.

Written by Austen 1817, PERSUASION tells the story of the young Anne Elliot, who lost her chance at love when her family persuaded her to refuse an offe...

Faith Omole (Viola) in RET Twelfth Night. Photo Credit: Jonathan Keenan

TWELFTH NIGHT is one of the best Shakespeare adaptations seen at the Royal Exchange in a long time

Funny, beautifully staged and well performed, Jo Davies’ adaption of Shakespeare’s TWELFTH NIGHT is a must-see piece at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre this spring.

Written by William Shakespeare in 1601/02 as a twelfth night’s entertainment for the close of the Christmas season, this 400 year old play is a comedy dis...

David Grieg’s reinterpretation of THE SUPPLIANT WOMEN fails to live up to the power and passion of Aeschylus’ 2500 year old play

Based on Aeschylus’ 2500 year old play and made new by David Grieg, THE SUPPLIANT WOMEN is a short choral movement in three acts. It tells the tale of 50 women who arrive in Argos, the land of their ancestral Gods, seeking refuge from forced marriage with their Egyptian cousins and the perils of their exile. 

To open proceedings, the cast hark back to the days of...

Kathryn Hunter in THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA.  Photo by Jonathan Keenan

Intense, bitter and darkly comic, Graeae’s full-blooded adaptation of Lorca’s final tragedy focuses on the emotional intensity of the piece

Following their radical production of BLOOD WEDDING, Graeae Theatre Company return to the stage to take on another of Lorca’s classics, THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA.

Based on the Spanish play by Federico García Lorca, THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA centres on the events of a house of the ...

When SWEET CHARITY first premiered on Broadway in 1966, the musical defined a decade. Beginning with the hope and optimism of the 1960s and ending with the cynicism of the 1970’s, the production set new limitations for the characters in musicals, particularly women. 50 years later, the Tony-nominated musical has been revived in a brand new production by Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre.

Based on the original screenplay by Federico Fellini, SWEET CHARITY tells the story of Charity Hope Vale...

Intelligent, multi-layered and incredibly touching, BREAKING THE CODE explores the life and career of Alan Turing

Alan Turing’s story is certainly a fascinating one. In his mere 41 years, the British mathematician and pioneer of computer science not only helped to break the German Enigma code at Bletchley Park during World War II but also created one of the world’s first computer designs before his untimely suicide in 1954 following chemical castration for homosexual activity...

Maxine Peake as Blanche Dubois with Ben Batt as Stanley Kowalski. Photo Credit: Manuel Harlan

Following their critically acclaimed productions of HAMLET and THE STRIKER, Royal Exchange’s Artistic Director Sarah Frankcom and Associate Artist Maxine Peake reunite for their take on Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer-Prize winning masterpiece A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE.

Set in New Orleans, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE tells the story of Blanche DuBois, a woman living on stories of a glamorous past whose rea...

Dark, daring and incredibly dramatic, LITTLE SISTER is an innovative production which explores the themes of silence and survival

Following highly acclaimed performances of HUSBANDS & SONS, KING LEAR, THE NIGHT WATCH and THE MIGHTY WALZER, Royal Exchange close their spring/summer season with the world premiere of LITTLE SISTER, an innovative reinterpretation of a classic fairytale that is dark and daring.

Loosely based on the Brothers Grimm fairytale THE SIX SWANS which tells the story of a y...

Elliot Levey as Oliver Walzer in THE MIGHTY WALZER at Royal Exchange Theatre. Photo: Jonathan Keenan

THE MIGHTY WALZER is a fresh and modern adaption of a great comic novel

Howard Jacobson’s semi-autobiographical comic novel THE MIGHTY WALZER, has been adapted into a new stage adaptation directed by Jonathan Humphreys.

Written by Jacobson in Australia in the 1990s, THE MIGHTY WALZER is a riotous Manchester tale of growing up, sex and ping pong...