World premieres and bold new productions lead Everyman & Playhouse 2026 Season

Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse is proud to announce its 2026 season, bringing the very best of theatre from the region and beyond to the city. The new season features five compelling productions from some of the UK’s most exciting playwrights and creatives, continuing the theatres’ commitment to launching, establishing, and sustaining outstanding theatre talent.

Highlights include the world premiere of Alexandra Wood’s The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, a darkly funny and dangerously tense psychological thriller adapted from Hilary Mantel’s incendiary 2014 short story; Julia Cranney’s heartfelt Liverpool drama Attachment; a radical reimagining of Jekyll & Hyde by Evan Placey for Young Everyman Playhouse; a powerful new adaptation of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman; and the Everyman’s Rock ‘n’ Roll panto Beauty and The Beast.

The Everyman begins with an unmissable event, the world premiere of The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, a darkly funny and dangerously tense psychological thriller created for Liverpool and the Everyman by writer Alexandra Wood and based on the short story by Hilary Mantel, first published in 2014.

John Young, who will direct the play, said “This isn’t just a play for people who have an opinion or strong feeling towards Maggie Thatcher. It’s about class, about lives that collide, people trying to understand, asking questions, coming together, and bridging that divide. I also think it’s a play about what happens when people feel they don’t have a voice, and how dangerous it is when they feel they don’t have anything to lose.

There are big questions about what Thatcher means to us now, and what she meant, and her relationship to a divided Britain. And of course, the relationship between Thatcher and Liverpool. One of the gorgeous things about the Everyman space is that it can do both intimate and ‘massiveness’ really well. I think that’s what this play does. You’re in a small flat with just two people, but the ideas and subjects they’re talking about are enormous. It’s about this flat, but it’s also about so much more.”

Attachment continues the theatre’s recent success in producing new stories, often with new artists, and exploring new ways of working.  The fifth show in this strand, following Tell Me How It Ends, A Billion Times I Love You, and Our Town Needs A Nandos, Attachment allows The Everyman to create opportunities for graduates of its Young Everyman Playhouse programme and early career theatre makers from the Liverpool City Region, nurturing and empowering local talent that reaches nationally.  Attachment is a heartfelt Liverpool drama developed alongside adoptive families from Merseyside. It explores parenthood, hope, adoption, and the ways relationships can grow.

Writer Julia Cranney said, “I’m interested in the fact that there’s a ‘Disneyfied’ view of adoption. People who adopt are often put on a pedestal, but it’s so hard to be on a pedestal when you’re asking for help and nobody’s there on your level to help you. These people, who are so vulnerable, are picking up the pieces for an underfunded service because we assume that parents’ love will fill that gap. I hope Attachment goes some way to starting conversations around our system, and perhaps how it can be changed for the better.’”

Liverpool Everyman’s Young Everyman Playhouse (YEP) 18–25 Company presents Jekyll & Hyde, a daring and radically reimagined version of the gothic classic by award-winning writer Evan Placey. Dragging Stevenson’s tale into the digital age, this electrifying production rips through Victorian respectability. Not for the faint-hearted, expect violence, strong language, and plenty of fake blood as YEP’s emerging talents bring this dark, contemporary reinvention vividly to life.

In September, the Everyman revisits another timeless classic with Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman — one of theatre’s most enduring and powerful stories. A decade after last staging a Miller work, his “lost” film script The Hook, the Everyman return to the playwright whose words continue to resonate with audiences today. Death of a Salesman lays bare a family at breaking point and a man wrestling with his own sense of worth.

Already announced for the Everyman are two co-productions for Spring 2026. A major revival of Shelagh Stephenson’s Olivier Award-winning comedy The Memory of Water, a poignant yet hilariously sharp tale of three sisters reuniting for their mother’s funeral in 1996. Directed by Octagon Theatre Bolton’s Lotte Wakeham the cast includes Vicky Binns, Victoria Brazier, Helen Flanagan, and Polly Lister. While George Costigan and Matthew Kelly return to the Everyman stage where their careers began in the 1970s to take on Samuel Beckett’s timeless masterpiece Waiting for Godot, in a co-production with Octagon Theatre Bolton and Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre, directed by Dominic Hill.

The Liverpool Playhouse’s 2026 season promises a year of theatrical brilliance too, packed with beloved classics and bold new productions. Leading the lineup is Liverpool’s own Jodie Comer taking her final bow in Prima Facie. Audiences can also look forward to Inspector Morse, the return of The Woman in Black, imitating the dog’s innovative War of the Worlds, the RSC’s The Constant Wife, and powerful stage adaptations of The Shawshank Redemption and Single White Female.

New additions include the return of Emma Rice’s acclaimed company with Malory Towers, alongside thrilling new productions of Double Indemnity starring Mischa Barton and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. The Playhouse also continues to inspire younger audiences with family favourites The Dinosaur That Pooped, A Squash and a Squeeze, and ZOG, while comedy lovers can enjoy the ever-popular One Night With The Take That Experience, Mike Wozniak: The Bench, Sindhu Vee: Swanky, John Kearns⁠: Tilting at Windmills and Maisie Adam: Whatsherface, aprogramme featuring some of the UK’s top stand-ups.

2026 will end in monstrous style as Liverpool’s theatres deliver two spectacular festive treats. At the Everyman, a brand-new Rock ‘n’ Roll Panto Beauty and the Beast — written by Joe Ward Munrow and directed by Nathan Powell — will take to the stage, while the Playhouse unleashes the cult classic Little Shop of Horrors, serving up catchy tunes, dark comedy and one very hungry plant for a monstrously good holiday season.

Nathan Powell, the Everyman & Playhouse’s Creative Director, said,

“This season celebrates everything we love about making theatre in Liverpool — bold, heartfelt, and rooted in the stories that connect us. From thrilling new writing to reimagined classics, and the joyful chaos of our Rock ‘n’ Roll panto, 2026 showcases the best of our city. Central to this is our Made in Liverpool programme, championing homegrown talent and ensuring that the stories, voices, and creativity of this city take centre stage. We want audiences to feel excited, challenged, and proud of the work being made here — because these are Liverpool’s theatre, and its energy runs through everything we do.”

As part of our continued commitment to inclusivity and accessibility, we’re proud to spotlight our homegrown productions under the ‘Made in Liverpool’ banner. For 2026, audiences can take advantage of a fantastic ticket offer: see The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, Attachment, and Death of a Salesman for just £60, with a complimentary poster-gramme or memento for each performance. We continue to offer a broad range of ticket prices—from £11 to £61—to ensure theatre remains open to all. Our accessible performance programme includes relaxed, captioned, BSL-interpreted, and enhanced shows, the latter developed in collaboration with Extant to better serve visually impaired audiences.

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