Arcola Theatre announces autumn 2026 season with Morgan Lloyd Malcolm's Turn of the Screw

Arcola Theatre announces its autumn 2026 season with Morgan Lloyd Malcolm's Turn of the Screw and three world premieres

Five productions run from 9 September 2026 to 20 February 2027 at the Hackney theatre. The season opens with two world premieres and includes a Hannah Arendt play, a rare Arthur Miller revival and a new Ibsen directed by Mehmet Ergen.

Arcola Theatre has announced its autumn and winter 2026 season. Five productions, three world premieres, tickets from £12. Pay What You Can continues every Tuesday. All on sale from 11am Thursday 18 June at arcolatheatre.com.

Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, who wrote Emilia, has adapted Henry James' The Turn of the Screw for Arcola and Blackeyed Theatre. Directed by Nicky Allpress, it runs in Studio 1 from 11 September to 10 October, press night 18 September. A governess hired to care for two children in a remote country house becomes convinced they are being visited by malevolent spirits. Whether those spirits are real or a projection of something within her is the question the production refuses to answer. Malcolm's adaptation blurs the line between supernatural terror and psychological unravelling. It previews before a UK-wide tour.

The season opens on 9 September with Fire Fire, a new play by John Webber directed by Jennifer Tang. Eddie is holding a memorial for his brother at a park near their council estate. Paige has chosen the same day to close the road in a climate protest. They meet badly. They keep meeting. Until they find themselves taking drastic action together. A two-hander about grief, activism and the company you end up in. Press night 11 September. Presented with Metal Rabbit Productions, HighTide and Harlow Playhouse.

From 7 October, Julia Pascal writes and directs The Banality of Evil: Hannah Arendt, France, 1940. In May 1940, three German Jewish women are arrested in France: Hannah Arendt, artist Charlotte Salomon and Communist schoolgirl Eva Daube. Imprisoned together in Camp Gurs, each must decide whether to endure, resist or attempt escape into a dangerous and unknown future. The production draws on archival research and testimony, and uses cabaret, physical theatre and satire to move between history and the present. At its centre is a moment in Arendt's life that would later inform everything she wrote about power, evil and human responsibility. Press night 12 October.

From 16 October, Mehmet Ergen directs The Master Builder in David Edgar's new version of the Ibsen. Greg Hicks stars as Halvard Solness, a celebrated architect at the peak of his career, paralysed by the fear that the younger generation will overtake him. When Hilde Wangel reappears after ten years, she holds him to a promise he made and may have always known he could not keep. Press night 22 October.

The season closes with a rare revival of Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy, directed by Melly Still, whose previous Arcola production of Sputnik Sweetheart sold out. The play is set in a detention room in occupied France in 1942. A group of men have been picked up off the street and are waiting to be called for interrogation. As the hours pass they begin to understand they have been selected not at random but for who they are. Runs 15 January to 20 February 2027, press night 20 January.

Arcola's community programme includes the Queer Collective, a Mental Health Community Company, a 50-plus group and New Arrivals, the theatre's refugee and migrant company. Every year the theatre offers 26 weeks of free rehearsal space to culturally diverse and refugee artists.

Tickets from £12 to £39 at arcolatheatre.com.

Arcola Theatre Autumn/Winter 2026 Season

Fire Fire by John Webber, directed by Jennifer Tang
9 September to 3 October 2026, Studio 2. Press night 11 September.

The Turn of the Screw, adapted by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm from Henry James, directed by Nicky Allpress
11 September to 10 October 2026, Studio 1. Press night 18 September.

The Banality of Evil: Hannah Arendt, France, 1940 by Julia Pascal, written and directed by Julia Pascal
7 October to 7 November 2026, Studio 2. Press night 12 October.

The Master Builder by Henrik Ibsen, in a version by David Edgar, directed by Mehmet Ergen
16 October to 21 November 2026, Studio 1. Press night 22 October.

Incident at Vichy by Arthur Miller, directed by Melly Still
15 January to 20 February 2027, Studio 1. Press night 20 January.