Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
21 New Globe Walk, Bankside, London, SE1 9DT
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse Tickets
The Animals Come to the Table
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
Tickets from £8.00In this bold, clever new play by one of the UK's leading playwrights, Timberlake Wertenbaker, humanity is called to the negotiating table by the animals demanding an end to exploitation and ecological destruction. Bringing together politics, wit, philosophy and mischief in an audacious experiment about stepping into someone else's shoes, this is an urgent, timely, and unflinching response to the crisis facing our planet, told in a delightfully creative way.
- Opens: Friday, 11 December 2026
Booking until: Sunday, 24 January 2027
- Playing at: Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
- Booking until: Sunday, 24 January 2027
Julius Caesar
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
4.5 2 reviews 4.5 2 reviews Tickets from £8.00Ancient Rome comes to the beautiful candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse as Julius Caesar kicks off Shakespeare's Globe's winter season. Joe Hill-Gibbins (Ghosts, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse) returns to direct Shakespeare's brutal and timely tale of friendship, betrayal and political violence, staged for the first time ever in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. In this classic Roman tragedy, the ambitious dictator Caesar's growing power causes his allies to turn against him in a murderous plot, but public opinion quickly turns against them, giving way to bloody civil war.
- Opens: Friday, 6 November 2026
Booking until: Sunday, 14 February 2027
- Playing at: Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
- Booking until: Sunday, 14 February 2027
King John
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
Tickets from £8.00Olivier-nominated director Jaz Woodcock-Stewart (Paradise Now!, Bush Theatre) makes her Globe directorial debut with Shakespeare's rarely performed masterpiece. This is one of Shakespeare's least performed plays but remains a fascinating exploration of the harsh realities of power and politics, in which King John takes the throne after the death of his beloved brother and finds his rule challenged on all sides.
- Opens: Sunday, 7 February 2027
Booking until: Sunday, 11 April 2027
- Playing at: Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
- Booking until: Sunday, 11 April 2027
The Seagull
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
Tickets from £7.00The team behind the 2025 production of Three Sisters, Caroline Steinbeis and Rory Mullarkey reunite as director and translator for Chekhov's timeless story of ambition and desire, inspired by Shakespeare's Hamlet. In this outstanding piece of Russian drama, the lives of four individuals intersect on a rural estate when Konstantin Treplev, a brooding young experimental playwright, falls deeply in love with a local ingenue named Nina, who finds herself drawn to Konstantin's mother Arkadina's lover Boris. What follows is a thrilling psychological drama.
- Opens: Sunday, 17 January 2027
Booking until: Tuesday, 27 April 2027
- Playing at: Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
- Booking until: Tuesday, 27 April 2027
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse Facilities
- Bar
- Disabled toilets
- Infrared hearing loop
- Toilets
- Wheelchair/scooter access
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse Location
Travel Information
Nearest Tube station
- London Bridge
- Southwark
Nearest Rail Station
- London Bridge
Tube lines
- Jubilee
- Northern
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse like inside?
Small, wooden and lit by candles — more than a hundred beeswax candles, which is the whole point of the place. It is an indoor playhouse built to recall how plays were seen in the early seventeenth century, and the effect is intimate in a way no modern auditorium manages: the audience is close, the light moves, and you can smell the wax. Seating is on cushioned benches. There is very little room inside to put belongings, so travel light or use the cloakroom, and the site is cashless.
Is the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse accessible to wheelchair users?
Yes. The wheelchair position is in Box A of the Lower Gallery, reached through a door at piazza level, with a companion seat next to it — one position, so book it through the access team rather than online. Getting to the playhouse is step free and there is lift access. Accessible toilets are provided, and portable hoists can be arranged on request. Induction loops run throughout: switch a hearing aid to the T or 3 setting, or borrow a hearing enhancer from the Welcome Desk. Assistance dogs are welcome.
Can I take a bag or a drink into the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse?
Keep it to a minimum. The playhouse is a small wooden room with almost nowhere to put things, so a coat and a large bag are better left in the cloakroom, which charges a small amount per item. Drinks, snacks, ice creams and programmes are sold before the show and at the interval, and after the performance at matinees. Payment is by card — the site takes no cash. Toilets, including gender-neutral ones and baby-change, are on the main site, and there is a quiet space in the upper foyer.
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse history
The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse is an indoor theatre forming part of Shakespeare's Globe, along with the Globe Theatre on Bankside.