Major description
Major is a new play about the weeks in which the Conservative Party removed one leader and found itself with a very different one.
In November 1990 Margaret Thatcher resigned after eleven years in office. The man who replaced her was John Major, a chancellor of a few months' standing, from a background nothing like his predecessor's, and by some distance the least expected of the candidates. The play follows that handover and the party that made it, and what it meant for everyone who had spent a decade defining themselves for or against Thatcher.
This is a world premiere and one of eight new works in the National Theatre's 2027 programme. It runs in the Olivier Theatre and reunites the writer and director of This House, the National Theatre's 1970s Westminster play that transferred to the West End.
The play is by James Graham, whose Dear England and This House were both staged at the National Theatre and who has won Olivier Awards for Best of Enemies and Labour of Love. His television work includes Sherwood and Brexit: The Uncivil War.
The director is Jeremy Herrin, a former artistic director of Headlong, who directed This House at the National Theatre as well as People, Places and Things and the stage adaptations of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. Casting has not yet been announced.
Book tickets for the story of how the least likely candidate ended up with the job.
