Lyceum listings

Edinburgh’s leading production house

Lyceum Theatre
Grindlay Street EH3 9AX. Phone booking: 0131 248 4848
Website: lyceum.org.uk

The Lyceum. Pic: Eamonn McGoldrick

The Royal Lyceum Theatre is a a 628 seat producing house designed by C. J. Phipps which had its opening night on 10 September 1883 and has had relatively minor refurbishment since.

2024

Blue Beard
Adapted and directed by Emma Rice.
Tue 12 – Sat 30  March 2024
Tue – Sat: 7.30pm; Mats Weds & Sat: 2.30pm.
Blue Beard the Magician makes hearts flutter and pupils dilate. With a wink, a stroke and a flick – things just seem to vanish. Cards, coins, scarves… and women.  Emma Rice brings her own brand of theatrical wonder to this most beguiling and disturbing of tales. With her signature sleight of hand, Blue Beard explores curiosity and consent, violence and vengeance – all through an intoxicating lens of music, wit and tender truth. Book here.

LYT Curtain Raiser – Blue Beard
LYT Wednesday Seniors.
Fri 22  March 2024
Tue – Sat: 7.30pm; Mats Weds & Sat: 2.30pm.
Curtain Raisers provide our young people with a more in-depth opportunity to engage with the season’s shows and showcase their performance skills. Join our Wednesday Seniors group as they present their original response to the themes of Blue Beard. Book here.

The Girls of Slender Means
By Gabriel Quigley, adapted from the novel by Muriel Spark
Sat 13 April – Sat 4 May 2024
Tue – Sat: 7.30pm; Mats Weds & Sat: 2.30pm.
Set in the summer of 1945, in a hostel for the ‘Pecuniary Convenience and Social Protection of Ladies of Slender Means below the age of Thirty Years, who are obliged to reside apart from their Families in order to follow an Occupation in London.’, The Girls of Slender Means follows the adventures of the women who live there. They do their best to act as if the war never happened. But behind the girls’ giddy literary and amorous explorations hides an exquisite fragility and sinister peril, as they strive to survive ‘when all the nice people were poor’. Book here.

Macbeth (an undoing) 2024
By Zinnie Harris, in a new version after Shakespeare
Tue 14 – Sat 25 May 2024
Tue – Sat: 7.30pm; Mats Weds & Sat: 2.30pm.
When her husband returns victorious from the battlefield with a prophecy that he is to become King of Scotland, Lady Macbeth will stop at nothing to make their darkest ambitions a reality. So far, so familiar. But then the story fragments. The Lyceum revives its much lauded 2023 production. Book here.

Sunset Song
By Morna Young, after Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Tue 28 May – Sat 8 June 2024
Tue – Sat: 7.30pm; Mats Weds & Sat: 2.30pm.
Scotland’s most loved literary heroine Chris Guthrie is brought to the stage in this thrilling contemporary adaptation. From harrowing family roots and crushing poverty, to stirring love and the awakening of self, Chris’s coming-of-age journey to womanhood is one of enduring strength, persistent survival and joyful renewal. Book here.

Shirley Valentine
The Pitlochry Festival Theatre Production.
Wed 12 – Sat 29 June 2024
Tue – Sat: 7.30pm; Mats Weds (not 12) & Sat: 2.30pm.
Sally Reid reprises her CATS award-winning performance in the PFT production of Willy Russell’s iconic play, directed by Elizabeth Newman. When her best friend suggests a trip to Greece, Shirley packs her bags and soon realises that there is more to life than the mundane existence she leads back home. Now, Shirley has a big decision to make… Book here.

Nish Kumar: Nish, Don’t Kill My Vibe
Sat 14 Sept 2024
One show: 7.30pm.
In this election year – with the country in turmoil – there’s only one comedian who can kill the mood even further… Expect jokes about climate collapse, income inequality and the emotional sensation of being a British Indian man who isn’t going to vote for a British Indian Prime Minister. It’s 80 minutes of sweet, sweet vibe killing, plus support act and interval. Book here.

The Baddies
Based on the book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
Fri 4 – Sun 20 Oct 2024

Daily (not Mon) 10.10am, 1.30pm. Fri 4 & Sat/Sun: 3.30pm.
The Baddies love being bad. They roar, spook and cast wicked spells to try and scare a girl out of her wits…who will succeed? Or perhaps the girl is braver than they think… With songs by Joe Stilgoe (Zog and Zog and The Flying Doctors), The Baddies is a wickedly hilarious adaptation of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s smash-hit story. A laugh-out-loud riot for all the family. Book here.

Treasure Island
Sat 30 Nov 2024 – Sat 4 Jan 2025
Sat 30, Thurs 5 – Sat 4 (not Sun/Mon): 2pm, 7pm; Suns: 1pm, 6pm.
Following the smash-hit Christmas production of The Snow Queen, the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh presents another epic story for the whole family – a new re-imagining of esteemed Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson’s quintessential adventure story. Book here.

ENDS