Hamnet UK tour 2027: dates and venues announced

The RSC and Neal Street’s acclaimed stage version of Hamnet, adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, is going on its first UK tour from September 2027, opening at the Lowry in Salford before heading to eleven more cities.

If you missed Hamnet in Stratford or the West End, here’s your second chance, and it might be coming to a city near you. The RSC and Neal Street’s stage version of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, now also an Oscar-winning film, according to the producers, is heading out on its first UK tour. It opens at the Lowry in Salford on 25 September 2027, then visits Newcastle, Truro, Norwich, Nottingham, Canterbury, Birmingham, Glasgow and Bath before a Christmas break.

The show then returns in January 2028 for Belfast, York, Wimbledon and Southampton, with further dates to come.

Hamnet tells the story behind the greatest writer in the English language. In Warwickshire in 1582, Agnes Hathaway, a natural healer, meets a Latin tutor called William Shakespeare, and together they make a family. When the plague takes their 11-year-old son Hamnet, they each face their loss alone, and out of the greatest suffering, something of extraordinary wonder is born.

A love letter to the theatre

Three actors on a multi-level wooden stage under blue spotlights; two men stand on a raised platform facing each other while a woman in a long dress watches from below left.

Wedding scene on a stage under a tall, ivy-covered triangular frame with actors in period costumes surrounding the couple.

Hamnet premiered at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, breaking box office records, then opened at the Garrick Theatre in the West End in 2023 with, the producers say, the biggest advance in the theatre’s history at the time. Playwright Lolita Chakrabarti (Life of Pi, Red Velvet) adapted the novel, and Erica Whyman directs, with set design by Tom Piper.

Whyman, who says she has spent her career advocating for UK touring, calls the play “a love letter to the theatre, to Shakespeare,” as well as a love story with a remarkable woman at its heart. For Chakrabarti, though, it comes down to one thing: it’s a story about family, and “an eleven year old boy and the people around him.” Full casting and the creative team are still to be announced.