The new 2026/27 season of performances at Birmingham Rep is ‘big, bold and daring’, promises the theatre’s artistic director, Joe Murphy. With new takes on classics, adaptations of bestsellers and a host of new commissions, Joe says The Rep’s programme is ‘proudly Birmingham, distinctively Rep and world-class’.

Joe, who joined the theatre in the spring after a hugely successful period as artistic director of the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff, is keen for his first Birmingham season to represent and reflect the different communities in the city.

“This season is trying to offer a big, bold and daring programme that galvanises a diverse audience, that is unashamedly popular but is also put together with real integrity and real connection and commitment to our city and the concerns of our city.”

One of the season’s highlights will be a new staging of Andrea Levy’s award-winning novel Small Island, which tells the story of the Windrush generation through the lens of two couples, one Jamaican and the other English. Using the Helen Edmundson script created for the 2019 National Theatre staging, director Matthew Xia is creating a new production. 

“Small Island is first and foremost an amazing play adapted from an amazing novel that is of the highest quality,” says Joe. “And it’s a great opportunity to put on the main stage a story that might not be set here in Birmingham but is deeply resonant with a lot of people in this city. That’s a statement of intent from us as well - to say, this main stage belongs to all the communities of our city, and that all of those stories deserve to be seen on that grand scale.”

In April and May, Joe joins forces with The Rep’s deputy artistic director, Madeleine Kludje, to direct a new production of Shakespeare’s ever-popular A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“We felt there could be a distinctively Birmingham version of Shakespeare that would honour Shakespeare but also allow us to reflect the city back to itself, to talk about the city, to represent the city in a really dynamic, populist and artistic way.

“It’s a play about love - love for yourself, love for each other, and love for the planet and the world. It felt like, right now, that’s an incredibly important thing to say.” 

The team are hoping to attract both local talent and local audiences.

“We will be holding open access applications for audition for Birmingham-based actors, and it’s a chance for us to show off The Rep and the artists of the city. And we’re doing 5,000 tickets at £5 for under-25s, so that anybody can come and see the work.”

Joe then takes on sole directorship of a new production of Stephen Sondheim’s Gothic thriller Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street, which he hopes will be the precursor of many more Rep-created musicals.

“I would love The Rep to become a home for world-class musical revivals. I think there’s an appetite and a space in Birmingham which doesn’t tread on any toes but allows us to define what our idea of a musical is.  

“Sweeney Todd is the perfect title to start with because it’s a fantastic musical. It’s incredibly well written and very funny, but it’s also deep and complex - an amazing exploration of a ruptured soul.”

In January, The Rep will host concert performances of new musical Sweet Henry V, written by Seiriol Davies, whose previous works include Betty! A Sort Of Musical, a play about former West Bromwich MP and Speaker of the House of Commons Betty Boothroyd.

“Sweet Henry V tells the story of Henry V and how he went from playboy prince to the most famous warrior king in British history,” says Joe. “It does that through a sort of epic, sword & sorcery queer romance saga between the young Prince Hal and Owain Glyndŵr, the rebel of Wales. 

“It’s done very irreverently, with a lot of fun. We sort of describe it as ‘Shakespeare’s history plays, taken out for a night on the tiles’! It’s kind of Braveheart meets Hamilton meets Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert!

“The concert performance is an opportunity to get the show before audiences, to see what works and what doesn’t work, and how people engage with it.”

Moving into the summer, The Rep will be staging the first major production of Mark Haddon’s bestseller The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time since the National Theatre’s award-winning version.

“It’s co-produced with Melting Pot Theatre Company and will then do a national tour. We chose a really exciting title, and I hope it’s definitive of what The Rep will be: a place to launch major contemporary classics and revivals which will then tour.”

For Christmas 2026, the main theatre will stage JM Barrie’s Peter Pan, which will be adapted by writer - and former director of The Rep Youth Theatre - Phil Porter, with music by West Midlands composer Ruth Chan. 

For younger children, The Rep’s studio space, The Door, will host an adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen story The Ugly Duckling.

Looking into 2027, the theatre will re-mount its sell-out adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s novel 1,000 Splendid Suns, as well as re-staging former Birmingham Poet Laureate Casey Bailey’s show GrimeBoy, which premiered at The Rep in 2022.

The theatre has also commissioned a host of new works, including Chains - by Birmingham writer Rem Conway - which sees a father-and-son relationship examined when two men are chained together.

A stage version of Vikas Swarup’s novel Q & A, which inspired the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire, is being written by East Is East author Ayub Khan Din, while writer Rachel Delahaye will be adapting Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.

And Birmingham author Kit de Waal, together with her brother Dean O’Loughlin, is adapting her bestselling book My Name Is Leon, which is set in Birmingham and was made into a BBC television series starring Sir Lenny Henry.

“We’ve got a really broad sweep,” says Joe. “There’s neuro divergence at the heart of Curious Incident; we’ve got South Asian experience at the heart of Q & A and 1,000 Splendid Suns; and we’re working with the black communities of the city for Chains, GrimeBoy, Jane Eyre and Small Island. 

“So what we are trying to do is signal some statement of intent: to represent our communities on our main stage, and to do it with world-class titles and projects that are really shooting for the stars.

“I’d say to people: come, come, come and be a part of it. What the season is trying to do is throw the doors open to everyone, and to say, as much as possible, that this theatre belongs to you; it’s for you. Please come through our doors, please come and see the shows, and then please tell us what you think.”

Visit birmingham-rep.co.uk for further information on all upcoming shows

By Diane Parkes