Kenneth Branagh returns to Royal Shakespeare Company for first time in 30 years

Award-winning actor and filmmaker Sir Kenneth Branagh, will return to the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) for the first time in more than three decades.

The Oppenheimer star, 64, is an acclaimed Shakespearean actor and made his first appearance with the theatre company aged 23 in a 1984 production of Henry V – before going on to star in the 1989 film adaptation.

He will now return for its spring 2026 programme as a lead in two RSC productions, including William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, where he will portray Prospero.

He will also star in Laura Wade’s version of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard as Lopakhin, alongside award-winning actress Helen Hunt, 62.

The Hollywood star, best known for As Good As It Gets, will make her RSC debut as Madame Ranyevskaya.

The play follows Ranyevskaya as she returns to Russia after living in Paris for five years to find that her home and cherry orchard is under threat as a son of a serf, Lopakhin, tries to sell it off.

The Cherry Orchard will run from July 10 until August 29 at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, while The Tempest will be staged at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre from May 13 to June 20.

The RSC will also stage Bertolt Brecht’s political satire on Hitler’s ascent to power, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, for the first time in the theatre company’s history.

The production stars Olivier Award-winner Mark Gatiss, 58, who will mark his debut with the company to portray gangster Arturo Ui in Stephen Sharkey’s version of the play, which will run from April 11 to May 30 at the Swan Theatre.

Gatiss said: “I’m absolutely thrilled to be playing Arturo Ui. The play is a savage, blackly funny satire on the rise of Hitler, depicting him as a ruthless Chicago mobster.

“I think it’s Brecht’s most accessible and dynamic work and Stephen Sharkey’s translation is an absolute firecracker.

“The play is always timely but to say it’s urgent now is an understatement. With fascism on the march everywhere, the story of how a washed-up non-entity like Hitler could seduce a nation and become the most powerful dictator in the world serves as a terrifying warning.”

The spring 2026 season will also see the RSC stage Driftwood by Martina Laird and co-produce A Midsummer Night’s Dream along with Unicorn, a children’s theatre in the UK.

Tamara Harvey and Daniel Evans, co-artistic directors at the RSC, said: “When we set out as the co-artistic directors of the Royal Shakespeare Company, we were united by a belief in the RSC as a home for radical and resonant theatre – inspired by Shakespeare and made by the most exciting artists from across the globe. Two years after our arrival, that commitment remains at the heart of everything we do.

“From Shakespeare’s late meditation on freedom and forgiveness to Anton Chekhov’s prescient final play, by way of Bertolt Brecht’s searing satire on the rise of fascism, our relationship to family, community and state is bought sharply into focus on stage in 2026.

“We know that the stories we choose to tell as artists play a vital role in bringing people together, building connections and deepen our understanding of one another. In an increasingly volatile world, this matters to us more than ever.”