What to see at the National Theatre 2020 season

By Lucy Brooks on 9/10/2019

From Tony Kushner's revenge comedy to Lucy Kirkwood's feminist crime mystery, the National Theatre 2020 season is an enticing prospect.

Booking opens at 8:30am on Friday 11 October

The Welkin, Lyttelton Theatre

Playwright Lucy Kirkwood, who dazzled with 2013's Chimerica, takes audiences to 1759, where a young woman is sentenced to hang for murder. When the convict claims she is pregnant, therefore exempt from the death penalty, a jury of 12 women must find out the truth. Maxine Peake stars as the midwife in charge of counselling the woman.

WHEN

15 Jan 2020 – 28 Mar 2020, 7:30 PM – 9:30 PM

WHERE

National Theatre
South Bank, London, SE1 9PX

Lesley Manville in The Visit, National Theatre. Photo by David Stewart

The Visit, Olivier Theatre

The world's richest woman returns to her impoverished hometown, offering to pay the locals to kill her ex-lover. Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s 1956 play The Visit is a darkly funny take on the revenge drama tradition. Angels in America playwright Tony Kushner re-works the text, exploring greed and hypocrisy in a thrilling new production.

WHEN

31 Jan 2020 – 04 Apr 2020, 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM

WHERE

National Theatre
South Bank, London, SE1 9PX

The Seven Streams of the River Ota, National Theatre

The Seven Streams of the River Ota, Lyttelton Theatre

French-Canadian director Robert Lepage seven-hour, multi-lingual exploration of the Hiroshima bombings returns to the National Theatre after dazzling and shocking in 1996. Brace yourself for an epic, inventive and visually arresting experience.

WHEN

06 Mar 2020 – 22 Mar 2020, 3:00 PM – 10:00 PM

WHERE

National Theatre
South Bank, London, SE1 9PX

Death of England, National Theatre

Clint Dyer will become the first black British creative to have written, directed and performed at the National Theatre when Death of England opens in the Dorfman Theatre in 2020. Developed in collaboration with writer Roy Williams, it's a powerful monologue as one man takes the mic at his father's funeral to rage about class, race, poverty and football. Rafe Spall stars.

WHEN

31 Jan 2020 – 11 Mar 2020, 8:00 PM – 9:30 PM

WHERE

National Theatre
South Bank, London, SE1 9PX