Chris Bush to co-write fresh Cinderella as part of Rose Theatre season

Kingston’s Rose Theatre is to stage a new version of Cinderella co-written by Chris Bush and Roni Neale as part of its 2025/26 season, which also features the world premiere of an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma. 

Four new productions are to be sandwiched between the previously announced Marie and Rosetta starring Beverley Knight, and the Welsh National Theatre’s very first production, Our Town, starring its artistic director Michael Sheen.

Cinderella sees Bush return to create a festive production at the London venue following her adaptation of Robin Hood last Christmas, and reunite with composer Matt Winkworth, who will provide original songs for the upcoming production. 

"I hope we can do justice to this timeless classic, while adding a few little twists of our own," the Olivier award-winning writer said. 

Cinderella will run at the venue from November 28 to January 4, 2026, with press night on December 4. 

Also among the theatre’s offerings for this year is the world premiere of a new adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma from Susan Smith Blackburn Prize winning playwright Ava Pickett and Rose Theatre’s artistic director Christopher Haydon.

Staged to coincide with the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth this autumn, Emma is scheduled to play at the Rose Theatre from September 17 to October 11, with press night on September 22. 

Unveiling the theatre’s "sharply contemporary" season, Haydon said he was especially excited to be collaborating on Emma. 

"Ava is a writer of rare talent and I can’t wait to collaborate with her to make this familiar and well-loved story feel fiercely fresh," he said. 

Pickett teased Emma as a "rollercoaster of what it means to be young and on the precipice of adulthood in 2025". Her modern take on Austen’s novel will run alongside Clueless the Musical’s West End stint, which is also based on Emma. 

Other productions lined up for this year at Rose Theatre include Noël Coward’s Private Lives, directed by Tanuja Amarasuriya, and the return of The Boy at the Back of the Class, which premiered at the Rose Theatre last year and subsequently toured the country. 

The latter is directed by The Stage Debut Award winner Monique Tuoko and is to run from February 6 to February 22, 2026, with press night on February 11, after Private Lives, which will play from October 14 to 25, 2025, with press night on October 15.