Royal Exchange Theatre celebrates 50 years with landmark anniversary programme

This September, the Royal Exchange Theatre celebrates its landmark 50th anniversary with a series of events marking the venue’s longstanding commitment to storytelling, championing new voices and fostering new talent, while looking back on its extraordinary origins and evolution into one of the UK’s most unique and radical theatre spaces.

The anniversary forms part of A Homecoming, the Royal Exchange’s 2026/27 season, bringing together playwrights, actors, directors and designers returning to their artistic home, inspired by the idea of ‘exchange’ to entertain, provoke and transform the imaginations of audiences both old and new.

The exhilarating celebratory programme features productions continuing throughout autumn and winter. King Lear comes to Manchester from Fri 2 Oct to Sun 15 Nov, bringing David Threlfall back to the Royal Exchange for the first time in 27 years and his eighth production at the theatre overall, while acclaimed director Matthew Dunster returns for his sixth engagement. Their shared history with the Exchange gives this new staging of Shakespeare’s elemental tragedy a particularly significant place within A Homecoming, with Threlfall taking on one of the playwright’s most formidable roles.

Later in the season, Selina Cartmell directs Sondheim’s breathtaking A Little Night Music, running from Sat 5 Dec to Sat 30 Jan. Set in turn-of-the-century Sweden, the Tony Award-winning musical follows a series of mismatched couples through romantic misfires, self-delusions and second chances, with a bittersweet score that includes the much-loved Send in the Clowns.

Another central part of the anniversary schedule, MYTHIC REINVENTION: AN EXHIBITION CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF COSTUME AND CRAFT launches on Wed 16 Sep and runs until Sun 15 Nov, bringing the theatre’s remarkable costume archive to life through a free public exhibition co-curated by international award-winning designer Leslie Travers and Royal Exchange Head of Costume Tracy Dunk.

Inspired by the unique architecture of the venue’s Victorian Great Hall and carefully selected from an extensive archive of more than 25,000 individual items, the exhibition celebrates fifty years of storytelling through costume, craft and performance. Audiences will be able to discover costumes worn by Dame Helen Mirren, Don Warrington, Andrew Garfield, Sir Tom Courtenay, Maxine Peake and Suranne Jones, among many other celebrated performers and landmark Royal Exchange productions, alongside storied objects from the archive.

Leading up to the exhibition launch, EXCHANGING STORIES brings a series of special live conversations exploring everything that has made the Royal Exchange so distinctive over the past five decades, from its pioneering architecture and design to its enduring focus on groundbreaking new writing and its role in shaping the UK’s theatre ecosystem.

Across Sat 12 and Sun 13 Sep, audiences can hear multi-award-winning actor David Threlfall in conversation with acclaimed director Matthew Dunster ahead of King Lear, while playwrights Rory Mullarkey, Simon Stephens, Daisy Miles and Tolu Okanlawon discuss the Exchange’s remarkable legacy of championing new work and launching the careers of some of the world’s most influential playwrights. Victoria Turner of Levitt Bernstein, the original architects behind the venue, joins Artistic Director and Co-CEO Selina Cartmell to explore the process of transforming one of the world’s largest rooms into a home for theatre and the origins of its iconic module structure.

Meanwhile, Leslie Travers and Tracy Dunk will offer a closer look at the making of MYTHIC REINVENTION, unpacking the stories behind the extraordinary costumes and objects from the theatre’s archive.

Rounding off the initial festivities, the theatre will hold a special private, invitation-only gala night on Tue 15 Sep, the exact date of its 50th birthday, bringing together friends of the theatre and industry figures to toast five decades of the Royal Exchange and look ahead to its future.

marks a defining moment in Manchester’s cultural life, celebrating 50 years of one of the city’s most distinctive cultural institutions and its enduring national and international

Together, the Royal Exchange’s captivating anniversary programme marks a defining moment in Manchester’s boundless arts evolution, celebrating 50 years of a titanic cultural institution and its continued influence around the world. From a free exhibition exploring thousands of pieces of costume history and special live conversations to major productions continuing throughout A Homecoming, there will be plenty of ways for audiences of all ages to take part, with more anniversary activity still to be announced across the autumn.