Jermyn Street Theatre announces 2026 season

Jermyn Street Theatre has announced its 2026 autumn season, featuring the UK premiere of Simon Stephens’ A Slow Fireand a London revival of Richard Eyre’s adaptation of Ghosts.

The venue is an acclaimed 70-seat studio theatre in London’s West End. Housed in a former Victorian changing house, the intimate, independent venue champions lesser-known classics, reimagined masterpieces, and new writing.

Find out even more about the season in our free podcast featuring artistic director Stella Powell-Jones, co-artistic director and executive producer David Doyle – available here:

Spotify user? Try here:

The season opens with the UK premiere of A Slow Fire, written by Tony and Olivier Award winner Simon Stephens and directed by Rex Ryan. The production was first staged by Glass Mask Theatre in Dublin earlier this year.

Set years after an apocalypse, the play follows Ashton and Reese, two men surviving in a bunker on the edge of an imagined city. As they pass the time by recreating stories from the world that existed before catastrophe struck, the arrival of a stranger disrupts their fragile existence.

Stephens said: “At a time when theatres can seem tentative and anxious Jermyn Street Theatre seems to be holding a light to the possibility of work led by an artistic impulse. A Slow Fire is a nightmare vision that came to me in a jet lagged dream. It’s a surreal exploration of the urgency of hope in a time of apocalypse. I always secretly knew it belonged in the West End.”

The second production in the season will be Ghosts, Henrik Ibsen’s classic drama in Richard Eyre’s adaptation, directed by Kwame Owusu.

Set in Norway in 1890, the play follows Helene and her son Oswald as buried family truths begin to emerge during the opening of a memorial orphanage built in honour of Oswald’s late father.

Eyre said: “I’m thrilled that my version of Ghosts is going to be performed at Jermyn Street Theatre. It’s the perfect theatre for this intensely wrought play.”

Owusu returns to Jermyn Street Theatre following his work on the venue’s production of Omeros, co-directed with Emily Aboud. His directing work also includes Dreaming and Drowning, The Bacchae and Titus Andronicus.

Casting for both productions is to be announced.