Sam Jenkins-Shaw

Fierce and unstoppable, they are a chorus of wild energy ready to shake Thebes to its core — and liberate its women. But their god Dionysos has his own reckoning. In a showdown with his cousin, King Pentheus, family loyalty, political power and human desire are pushed to breaking point.

It's a hot, beautiful summer in 1905, and Russia's elite retreat to the countryside to swim, sip champagne and start affairs. When they're having this much fun, why care about anything else? But Varvara just can't shake the feeling that their holiday idyll is built on borrowed time. As the party continues, how long can they ignore the storm on the horizon? Deputy Artistic Director Robert Hastie (Standing at the Sky's Edge) directs Maxim Gorky's razor-sharp portrait of class, privilege and denial, revived for 2026 in a new adaptation from Nina Raine (Consent) and Moses Raine (Donkey Heart).

In Laura Wade’s clever play, her heroine becomes a 50s housewife but 21st-century gender politics lurk under the Formica surface.