WINTER made a sudden and generally unwelcome return for many of us over the past weekend but now, looking well ahead to the 2018-19 winter season at the Royal Shakespeare Company, there looks to be plenty of warming treats in store.

Gregory Doran, the RSC’s artistic director, says: “Our winter season is full of dark comedy and satire, with productions exploring abuse of power, greed, lechery and human potential for change”. 

He added: “Continuing our mission to ensure Shakespeare and theatre are for everyone, this season is packed with exciting theatre artists and has bite, humour and powerful resonances in our volatile world”.

Performances planned for the RST and the Swan, along with a number of special offers, are -

  • Troilus and Cressida, directed by Gregory Doran, with music by Evelyn Glennie – and which is dedicated to the memory of the RSC’s co-founder, John Barton.

• A Christmas Carol, adapted from Dickens’ tale by David Edgar and directed by Rachel Kavanaugh, and this is a production back by popular demand after such success last Christmas.

• Tamburlaine, by Christopher Marlowe – directed by Michael Boyd, who returns to the RSC for the first time since stepping down as artistic director.

• Tartuffe, a new version of Molière’s classic, by Anil Gupta and Richard Pinto, directed by Iqbal Khan and set in Birmingham’s Pakistani Muslim community.

• Timon of Athens, Kathryn Hunter takes the title role, directed by Simon Godwin.

• First Encounters with Shakespeare: The Comedy of Errors, tours schools and theatres nationwide and plays in the Swan Theatre, directed by Alex Thorpe, • ‘First Time Fridays’, £10 tickets for first-time visitors to the RSC every single Friday.

• New Shakespeare podcasts in partnership with the Daily Telegraph.

• In My Shoes – new national Arts Council Collection touring exhibition.

Mr Doran added: “We are halfway through our project to stage every one of Shakespeare’s plays in the First Folio, presenting work in a radically different way and making every play an event and celebrating Shakespeare’s continuing relevance to a contemporary audience.

“We have staged 19 Shakespeare productions since 2013, reaching a worldwide audience of 2.1 million.

“We open our winter season with my production of Troilus and Cressida, which I have chosen to dedicate to John Barton, the co-founder of the RSC, who sadly died recently.

He said that John was both ‘a great director and teacher and simply one of the greatest influences in the acting of Shakespeare of the last century’.

“He always declared that his favourite play was Troilus and Cressida, which he first directed in 1960.  When I told him I would be directing it this year, he shared some of his passion for the play with me.

“I regret that he won't be around to tell me what I got wrong”.

He said he was also enjoying collaborating with virtuoso percussionist, Dame Evelyn Glennie.

Her input is inspiring the very design of the Troilus set, as we devise ways of making the whole theatre resound with the rhythm of war. 

“We bring a gender-balanced cast to this testosterone-fuelled play on our main stage, exploring and challenging gender conventions for every character”. 

He also said that following the enormous success of David Edgar’s wonderful adaptation of A Christmas Carol, they are responding to popular demand and bringing it back for next Christmas.

And he added that they will be continuing to open their doors as wide as possible to young people and those who might not always feel theatre is for them with new audience initiatives.

“We work with partners in the heart of communities once more with our hugely popular First Encounters with Shakespeare, staging a new production of The Comedy of Errors in schools and local theatres around the country. 

“We are also making it even easier for first-time visitors to see our shows, with a new ‘First Time Fridays’ offer of two tickets at £10 each if you’ve never been to the RSC before”.