FULL CASTING ANNOUNCED FOR RSC 2026 TOUR OF HAMLET
IMAGES OF RALPH DAVIS (WHO PLAYS HAMLET) AND THE CAST CAN BE DOWNLOADED HERE
Full casting has been announced for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s forthcoming touring production of
Hamlet which visits Truro, Bradford, Norwich, Nottingham, Blackpool, Newcastle upon Tyne, York and Canterbury between 24 February – 25 April 2026. A full list of venues and dates is at the end of the release.
The production, originally directed by Rupert Goold and directed on tour by Sophie Drake, visits eight venues in England in 2026 with a new cast, after originally opening in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon in 2025.
Joining the previously announced Ralph Davis (who plays the title role of Hamlet), are: Rob Alexander-Adams (Voltemand), Richard Cant (Polonius), Kat Collings (Ensemble), Raymond Coulthard (Claudius), Maximus Evans (Marcellus), Ian Hughes (Ghost/Player King), CJ Johnson (Player Queen), Julia Kass (Guildenstern), Poppy Miller (Gertrude), Georgia-Mae Myers (Ophelia), Mark Oosterveen (Cornelius/Priest), Djibril Ramsey (Barnardo), Colin Ryan (Horatio), Jonathan Savage (Ensemble), Jamie Sayers (Rosencrantz), Leo Shak (Francisco) and Benjamin Westerby (Laertes).
An accomplished classical actor, Ralph Davis has already played several leading men. He was nominated for the 2023 Ian Charleson Award for playing Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, appeared as Edmund in King Lear (both at Shakespeare’s Globe), and most recently played Iago in Othello at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, for which he came second in the 2025 Ian Charleson Awards. As well as other theatre credits at the Almeida, Chichester Festival Theatre, Ustinov Studio and elsewhere, Ralph’s RSC credits include Tamburlaine, Timon of Athens, Richard III and King John.
Ralph co-wrote, created and starred in Film Club for the BBC which came out in 2025. His other screen credits include House of the Dragon for HBO, Big Boys for Channel 4, SAS: Rogue Heroes, Life After Life and Steve McQueen’s Small Axe for the BBC.
Raymond Coulthard plays Claudius. His previous RSC credits include Cyrano de Bergerac, Heresy of Love, Measure for Measure and The Merchant of Venice 1936. Other theatre credits include Summerfolk, Troilus and Cressida, The Merchant of Venice, The Coast of Utopia, The Relapse and Women Beware Women (National Theatre). On screen he has appeared in The Muppets Christmas Carol, The English Patient, Red Joan, Hotel Babylon, Emmerdale and Extras.
Poppy Miller plays Gertrude. Her previous RSC credits include Bartholomew Fair and The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Other theatre credits include: The Hunt, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Almedia Theatre), Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (West End and Broadway) and Richard III (Globe). Screen credits include: The Second Best Marigold Hotel, Sex and Drugs and Rock & Roll, Death In Paradise and Line of Duty.
Georgia-Mae Myers plays Ophelia. Her previous RSC credits include: Henry VI: Rebellion and Wars of the Roses. Other theatre credits include: Henry VIII, All’s Well That Ends Well, Titus Andronicus (Globe), The Da Vinci Code (Wiltshire Creative & Mercury Theatre), Frankenstein (Leeds Playhouse & ITD) and Dismissed (Soho Theatre).
In each venue the tour visits there will be a programme of participatory work, with members of the local community creating their own responses to the play.
Hamlet - Shakespeare’s epic family drama of deceit and murder - is directed by multi award-winner Rupert Goold. Rupert’s theatre credits include celebrated productions of Dear England (National Theatre), and Romeo and Juliet and The Merchant of Venice (RSC). In 2026 Rupert will take up the role of Artistic Director of The Old Vic after 13 years at the Almeida Theatre. He has received Olivier, Critics’ Circle and Evening Standard awards for Best Director twice and won a Peabody Award in 2011 for Macbeth. In 2017 he received a CBE in the New Year’s Honours for services to drama.
Rupert Goold, Director, said:
“Hamlet is a play about the inevitability of death - the death of fathers, the death of kings, the mortality facing each and everyone of us, but it is also a play about how to live, what makes a good life and a just one too, however brief our allotted time. Our production is set aboard a ship but one that is soon to founder, going down with all hands. Its inspiration comes from the most famous sinking in history, and just as that icy tragedy came to pass in a little over two and a half hours our play takes place in real time and for about as long, as much catastrophic thriller as poetic meditation. It’s a production that asks what it means to be human and decisive when time is running out.”
Sophie Drake, Revival Director, said
“I’m so looking forward to taking this exciting show on the road. We’ve assembled a wonderful cast, led by Ralph Davis, who promises to make a great Hamlet. It’s probably Shakespeare’s most famous play, but I’m sure no one will have seen a Hamlet like this before. I can’t wait for audiences to see it.”
Hamlet is the Prince of Denmark. After the death of Hamlet’s father, his uncle, Claudius, marries his mother and takes the throne for himself. In one of the most famous scenes in Shakespeare, Hamlet’s father appears to the young prince as a ghost, telling his son that he was murdered by Claudius. Seeking vengeance, he wants Hamlet to kill Claudius, setting off a tragic chain of events.
Joining Rupert on the creative team are: Sophie Drake (Revival Director), Es Devlin (Set Designer), Evie Gurney (Costume Designer), Jack Knowles (Lighting Designer), Adam Cork (Composer and Sound Designer), Hannes Langolf (Movement Director), Akhila Krishnan (Video Designer), Kev McCurdy (Fight Director), Rebecca Latham (Dramaturg), and Matthew Dewsbury CDG (Casting Director).
The tour of Hamlet is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, which makes it possible for the RSC to expand its tour to work in partnership with more places across England.
For more informing please contact:
Dean Asker
Senior Media Relations Officer
dean.asker@rsc.org.uk
NOTES TO EDITORS
‘Drown the stage with tears.’
Grief can play tricks on the mind, even conjure ghosts. But when Hamlet’s dead father appears to him one night, he signals murder, not madness.
Hamlet’s mother has married his uncle, and at a less than decent interval too. As he pulls at the threads of his not-so-happy new family, Hamlet unravels a web of deceit and immorality that leads to the ultimate crisis of conscience.
National press night: Tuesday 10 March, Norwich Theatre Royal
Tour schedule
Hall for Cornwall, Tuesday 24 February – Saturday 28 February 2026
Alhambra Theatre, Bradford, Tuesday 3 March – Saturday 7 March 2026
Norwich Theatre Royal, Tuesday 10 March – Saturday 14 March 2026
Nottingham Theatre Royal, Tuesday 17 March – Saturday 21 March 2026
Grand Theatre, Blackpool, Tuesday 24 March – Saturday 28 March 2026
Theatre Royal, Newcastle, Tuesday 31 March – Saturday 4 April 2026
York Theatre Royal, Tuesday 14 April – Saturday 18 April 2026
Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury – Tuesday 21 April – Saturday 25 April 2026
The RSC is supported using public funding by Arts Council England
The work of the RSC is supported by the Culture Recovery Fund
The RSC is generously supported by RSC America
With thanks to Season Supporter Charles Holloway OBE
The tour of Hamlet is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England
RSC £10 Tickets for 14-25s supported by TikTok
The RSC Acting Companies are generously supported by The Gatsby Charitable Foundation
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a leading global theatre company that sparks local, national and international conversations that build connections, create opportunities and bring joy.
We passionately believe that great storytelling can change the world, and that theatre offers its own unique form of storytelling: it’s live and shared, and transforms a group of strangers into audiences who, together, experience a story come to life in front of their eyes.
We collaborate with the most exciting artists to tell the stories of our time, and through a range of programmes we nurture the talent of the future.
We perform on three stages in our home in Stratford-upon-Avon, in London and in communities and schools across the country and around the world.
Our transformative Creative Learning and Engagement programmes reach over half a million young people each year
Arts Council England is the national development agency for creativity and culture. We have set out our strategic vision in Let’s Create that by 2030 we want England to be a country in which the creativity of each of us is valued and given the chance to flourish and where everyone of us has access to a remarkable range of high-quality cultural experiences. We invest public money from Government and The National Lottery to help support the sector and to deliver this vision. www.artscouncil.org.uk. Following the Covid-19 crisis, the Arts Council developed a £160 million Emergency Response Package, with nearly 90% coming from the National Lottery, for organisations and individuals needing support. We are also one of the bodies responsible for administering the Government’s unprecedented Culture Recovery Fund, of which we delivered over £1 billion to the sector in grants and loans. Find out more at www.artscouncil.org.uk/covid19
TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video. Their mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. TikTok's global headquarters are in Los Angeles and Singapore, and its offices include New York, London, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo
