GAME OF THRONES: THE MAD KING sets London opening for 2027

The Royal Shakespeare Company has confirmed that GAME OF THRONES: THE MAD KING will open in London in 2027 after its world-premiere season at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. The announcement gives the long-developing fantasy prequel its next confirmed destination, although the London theatre and exact performance dates are still to be announced.

The Stratford season is scheduled to finish on Saturday, 5 September 2026. The RSC describes the premiere run as sold out, while co-artistic directors Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey report that 57 per cent of bookers were new to the organisation. That audience figure is an RSC-reported statistic rather than an independently audited measure.

At this stage, the commitment is to a city and year rather than a fully detailed engagement. No run length, ticketing timetable, prices or authorised ticketing partners have been published. A London cast has not been named, and there is no confirmation that the Stratford company will transfer. Until a theatre is identified, the production also cannot be described as a confirmed West End engagement.

Set more than a decade before the main narrative of George R. R. Martin’s novels, the play begins around a tournament at Harrenhal and spans the final years before the books. The official synopsis identifies the Targaryen, Stark, Lannister, Baratheon and Martell houses as part of the story, placing several of its major dynasties within the same prequel drama.

The RSC describes the production as the first stage play arising from Martin’s epic fantasy series. It is adapted by Duncan Macmillan and directed by Dominic Cooke, with Martin credited as creator and executive producer. He separately confirmed the London move in a first-person blog post published on 3 September 2026.

The current producers are Simon Painter, Tim Lawson, Mark Manuel, Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures on behalf of HBO, and Sir Leonard Blavatnik and Danny Cohen for Access Entertainment.

The Stratford staging uses a format created for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Its auditorium was transformed around a cross-shaped stage intended to provide different viewpoints according to where audience members sit. The RSC production page lists a running time of three hours and 40 minutes, including a 20-minute interval. Those details apply to the Stratford production and have not been confirmed for London.

How much of that arrangement can move with the play remains unresolved. No London staging plan or running time has been released, so the cross-shaped stage, altered auditorium and current duration should not be assumed to transfer. The RSC has also not confirmed whether Cooke will remount the production unchanged or which associate creatives will continue. The choice of theatre will be central to answering those practical questions.

AussieTheatre first reported the project on 31 March 2021, when it was in development with a proposed 2023 debut. At that stage, its longer-term ambitions included Broadway, the West End and Australia. The 2023 date was a provisional target that was later superseded, and the production ultimately received its world premiere with the RSC in 2026. No explanation for the changed timetable is established by the available verified material.

The new announcement is materially different from those earlier development plans. The 2021 coverage concerned an unproduced project and destinations framed as ambitions; the latest RSC announcement confirms a London opening after the Stratford season. It is the first confirmed progression beyond the RSC premiere, taking the large-scale production from Stratford into the London theatre market.

For Australian audiences, the current connection is Lawson. AussieTheatre’s earlier report identified him as Melbourne-based, and he remains among the credited producers. Australia was one of the project’s stated ambitions in 2021, but no Australian season has been confirmed. Nor is there a confirmed Broadway engagement or wider tour, so those former ambitions should not be read as current bookings.

The RSC and Martin say the London venue and dates will follow. The theatre choice will settle two important questions left open by the announcement: whether the engagement can formally be classed as West End, and how a production built around Stratford’s transformed auditorium can be accommodated in London.