ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY JOINS PRIME MINISTER TO CELEBRATE GREAT BRITISH THEATRE IN SHANGHAI

Date issued 31 January

The Prime Minister today joined representatives from The Royal Shakespeare Company and The National Theatre at the Design Innovation Institute in Shanghai to celebrate the impact of British theatre in China.

During the event, The Prime Minister met with Daniel Evans, Co-Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, for an exclusive performance and pop-up installation from the cast of Matilda The Musical, which returns to China for a third tour from next month. The acclaimed production is set to delight more than a quarter of a million audience members across China in 2026.

Showcasing world-class British creativity on the global stage, the installation featured guest appearances by cast members Seb Torkia (who plays Mr Wormwood) and Amelia Adams (Mrs Wormwood). The delegation also learnt more about the world-class craftsmanship behind the production with Matilda The Musical Wardrobe Supervisor Sharon Williams and Wigs and Make Up Supervisor Helen Keane.

Commenting from China, Daniel Evans, Co-Artistic Director said:

“The RSC is proud to share the best of British theatre with audiences around the world, strengthening the connections and joy that theatre brings across borders. The 2026 Matilda The Musical China tour showcases world-class British creativity and supports more than 100 jobs for UK nationals. Running from February to August, this acclaimed, multi-award-winning production will delight over a quarter of a million audience members across China. First performed on our stage in Stratford-upon-Avon in the heart of the West Midlands in 2010, Matilda The Musical continues to inspire audiences across the globe.”

The visit follows the Prime Minister’s trip to Beijing, where he is making the case for a more consistent and strategic partnership between the UK and China, to help unlock more opportunities for British businesses to grow and expand into China’s economy. The delegation included 60 representatives from British business, sport and culture.

The UK theatre sector is a vital part of the UK’s fast-growing creative industries. The UK’s performing arts sector generates a total of £2.39 billion in Gross Value Added (GVA) annually to the UK economy, supporting over 200,000 jobs, with a total turnover of 4.44 billion.

ENDS

For further information, please contact Kate Evans (Head of Media) on 07920 244 434 email: kate.evans@rsc.org.uk

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

NOTES TO EDITORS:

The RSC in China:

• The RSC has a tradition of cultural and educational exchange with China, which developed through a £1.5m grant in 2014 from the UK Government towards the translation of Shakespeare’s texts into Chinese and an additional £300,000 contribution to develop RSC tours to China. The vision of the project was “to share different experiences of Shakespeare and Chinese classical drama with new audiences both in the UK and China, fostering genuine cultural understanding and exchange.”
• An unprecedented cultural exchange between the RSC and China took place in 2016, marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. This included a decade-long commitment to translating Shakespeare’s worksinto Chinese, Chinese dramatic works translated into English for the very first time and a new education edition published for Chinese and UK schools.
• The Shakespeare Translations Project (2013-2023) was a decade long initiative which aimed to translate Shakespeare’s plays into Chinese. Starting with Henry V, Chinese theatre translators and key academics were embedded in rehearsals to create the first translation, working alongside Artistic Director Gregory Doran.
• In 2016, the RSC embarked on its first major tour to China with Gregory Doran’s acclaimed productions of Henry IV Parts I & II and Henry V. During February and March 2016 performances took place at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Beijing), the Shanghai Grand Theatre and Hong Kong Arts Festival, including a dynamic programme of education work. J.P. Morgan are the Global Tour Premier Partner in London (Barbican), China and New York (BAM, Brooklyn Academy of Music).
• The RSC broadcast four of its Shakespeare productions across the globe to 28 countries through Live from Stratford-upon-Avon cinema screenings, including in 250 cinemas in China. 

Matilda The Musical in China:

• Produced by GWB Entertainment in association with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the multi-award winning production of Matilda The Musical returns to China for a third national tour from February to August 2026.
• The production will visit Shanghai Grand Theatre, Shanghai from Wed 11 February to Sunday 29 March, Shaanxi Grand Theatre, Xi’An from Fri 3 to Sunday 12 April, Shenzhen Bay Theatre, Shenzhen from Friday 1 May to Sun 21 June and Shishan Grand Theater, Suzhou from Friday 26 June to Sunday 5 July.
• The Royal Shakespeare Company’s Matilda The Musical premiered at the RSC’s Stratford-upon-Avon home in 2010, before transferring to the West End in October 2011, where it opened to rave reviews and awards.
• Matilda The Musical swept the board at the 2012 Olivier Awards, with a record-breaking seven awards, and won four Tony Awards and a Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theater for the four girls sharing the title role on Broadway. It has since toured North America, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Ireland, South Africa and China and played its first non-English language production in Seoul, South Korea in 2018/19.
• In 2023, Matilda The Musical played for the first time in Japan. A new International Touring production opened in Tel Aviv in 2023 touring across Asia and the UAE and concluded its run in Abu Dhabi on 24 June 2024.
• The internationally renowned musical continues to play to packed houses in London’s West End at the Cambridge Theatre and has now been seen by 12 million people across 100 cities around the world.
• This anarchic production, about a strong and determined heroine with a vivid imagination, has won over 100 global awards, including 25 for Best Musical.A film adaptation made by the core creative team received its World Premiere at the London Film Festival in October 2022
• Matilda The Musical’s first visit to China in 2019 broke all box office records. A second tour in 2023 opened in Tel Aviv and was followed by dates in Dubai, Beijing (return), Suzhou, Shanghai (return) and Shenzhen (return), Bangkok, Singapore (return), Mumbai and Abu Dhabi.

Creative Learning and the Study of Shakespeare in China 

• Approximately 21 million Chinese students study plays by William Shakespeaere. His work is a staple of the national curriculum and is actively promoted to foster cultural exchange, with productions and translations frequently appearing in Chinese schools and theatres.
• The RSC has worked for 10 years in partnership with Dulwich College International, which celebrated the anniversary with the annual Worldwide Shakespeare Festival hosted by Dulwich College Suzhou and Dulwich International High School Programme Suzhou in China. 
• The RSC currently works with 9 schools in China (and a further 2 in Seoul & Singapore) to deliver teacher training, artist residencies with students and an annual Shakespeare Performance Festival bringing together all the schools in the network.  The schools include:  
  Dulwich College Shanghai Pudong, Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi, Dulwich College Suzhou, Dulwich College Beijing, Dulwich International High School Program Suzhou, Dulwich International High School Program Hengqin, Dehong Beijing, Dehong Xi'an & Dehong Shanghai. 
• The next student artist residencies will be ALP Joe Arkley delivering programmes in Suzhou and Zhuhai at the beginning of March.    
• In 2018, over 160 students from 10 schools in the network worked intensively with a team of six RSC Associate Learning Practitioners (ALP) to create an adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and performed this live at the Suzhou Broadcasting System Theatre in China.  Nearly 600 audience members watched the performance and a further 1,400 viewers online across the world - a shared moment of celebration, storytelling, and joy.
• In November 2025, the RSC launched the Shakespeare Curriculum; the first teaching and learning platform of its kind dedicated to Shakespeare’s plays with user interfaces for both teachers and students.
• The digital platform distils the RSC’s award-winning teaching approaches into a digital resource that can radically transform the way Shakespeare is taught and learnt about at KS3-4.
• The Shakespeare Curriculum addresses multiple key Government priorities to provide a scalable, cost-effective, and evidence-based model for integrating a digital first creative learning resource into the curriculum and help address the arts entitlement gap, supporting the growth and skills missions and unlocking potential for every young person.