It's a new year at Oxford Playhouse and so we are thrilled to announce our upcoming programming for Spring 2025.

With award-winning productions from touring theatre companies, outstanding contemporary dance and a full lineup of comedy, there's plenty of great entertainment coming up right here in the heart of Oxford.

This month, we are delighted to open the UK tour of The Shark is Broken. Fifty years on from the 1975 smash hit Jaws, this critically acclaimed Olivier award-nominated production celebrates movie history as it peeks at the choppy waters behind Hollywood’s first blockbuster and imagines what happened on board ‘The Orca’ when the cameras stopped rolling. Co-written by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon, Shaw (Warhorse, Common) also stars in the play as his father, Robert Shaw.

The final years of Sir Thomas More, the 16th-century Lord Chancellor of England, are depicted by celebrated actor Martin Shaw (Judge John Deed, Inspector George Gently, Hobson’s Choice) in Robert Bolt’s award-winning play, A Man for All Seasons. As Henry VIII seeks a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, Sir Thomas faces a difficult choice between his loyalty to the king and his own conscience - an internal conflict that shaped English history.

Nathaniel Parker and Dame Siân Phillips lead the cast in a double bill from one of the “supreme dramatists of the 20^th century”, Terence Rattigan. His one-act masterpieces Table Number Seven (from Separate Tables) and The Browning Version will be paired for the very first time in Theatre Royal Bath’s Summer 1954. Directed by Olivier and UK Theatre Award winner James Dacre (Four Quartets, The Two Popes and Blue/Orange).

There’s a high-octane version of Macbeth, with an Out of Chaos production in partnership with The Playhouse. The production was first developed by our Artistic Director Mike Tweddle in 2015 during his time on our attached artist scheme, Evolve. Award-winning actors, Hannah Barrie and Paul O’Mahony boldly play more than 20 roles as Shakespeare’s brutal tragedy is given new life in a haunting, breakneck adaptation which retains the intensity and intrigue of the original cautionary tale.

As an original co-producer, we are so very proud to welcome back the Olivier Award-winning Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of) following its triumphant West End run. With the story told from the viewpoint of the servants in the Bennet family house, Isobel McArthur’s brilliant and joyous adaptation is a hilarious, irreverent and affectionate reimagining of Jane Austen’s best-loved novel, complete with a string of karaoke hits.

Hambletts and Orchestra of the Swan return after the sell-out success of Red Sky at Sunrise, which starred Anton Lesser. They now bring 19^th century writer George Eliot to bold and dramatic life with a female-led show which delves into her great novels, letters, journals, poetry and journalism. Acclaimed singer-songwriter SuRie (Eurovision, 2018) stars alongside a guest leading actress in this dazzling music programme of Kate Bush, PJ Harvey, FKA Twigs and Florence + the Machine, weaved around Eliot’s immortal words.

Other celebrated drama this season includes Moira Buffini’s political comedy Handbagged, imagining the untold conversations of two of history’s most powerful women, Margaret Thatcher and Queen Elizabeth II. Ins Choi brings his heartwarming Kim’s Convenience, a story about a family-run Korean store that inspired the Netflix phenomenon.

Directed once again by Head of Participation & Artist Development Paul Simpson, the Playhouse Young Company – a collective of 17- to 25-year-olds - stage Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Olivier Award-winning play and true story, Our Country’s Good.

Our artistic patron Stewart Lee returns for a full week of his brand-new show Stewart Lee vs The Man-Wulf, other comedians providing laughs this season include Sarah Keyworth,Ed Byrne, Andy Zaltzman, Lou Sanders, Iain Stirling, Kerry Godliman, Marcus Brigstocke, Sara Pascoe, Mark Steel, and Joel Dommett. Browse the full lineup of comedy acts over on our What's On section.

Dance and circus this spring sees the return of an assortment of internationally acclaimed companies.

Back by popular demand, Ballet Black will delight audiences with a brand-new double bill, SHADOWS, as well as returning Ockham’s Razor with their sell-out show Tess, a groundbreaking circus adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s classic novel. Gandini Juggling tours once again to Oxford with a brand-new show, Heka, blurring the lines between juggling, magic and illusion.

This season, The Playhouse again welcomes an array of local companies to its Main Stage.

Celebrating seventy years of community theatre-making in the city, Oxford Theatre Guild returns to present George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion; the Musical Youth Company of Oxford returns to the Main Stage with Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, a highly requested title from the young people of the company, and get ready to experience world-class opera in the heart of the city with Oxford Opera Company’s production of Puccini’s iconic Tosca.

University of Oxford co-productions also return in the spring, with two student-produced musicals. Peach Productions presents Stephen Sondheim’s critically acclaimed Into the Woods, while Broken Wheel Productions stage the musical adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s beloved story of Jekyll & Hyde.

For younger audiences, Northern Ballet returns with a brand-new children’s ballet Hansel & Gretel. During the Easter holidays, Full House Theatre bring their delightful comedy The Worst Princess, based on the book by Anna Kemp and Sara Ogilvie.

Around the corner from The Playhouse’s Main Stage is the Burton Taylor Studio, where audiences can enjoy the very best of new writing and fringe theatre in the coolest, smallest venue in town! Browse its full programme on our What's On page.

As always, The Playhouse has a wide range of workshops and activities for audiences to get involved with through its own Take Part programme. Find out more about what events are happening throughout Spring.