Mother Courage and Her Children

Mother Courage and Her Children photos

Mother Courage and Her Children description

It's revolutionary! Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children is back at Shakespeare's Globe.

Mother Courage and Her Children returns to the Globe Theatre in summer 2027 for a limited run. Its 2026 premiere marked the first time a play by the poet and dramatist Brecht had appeared on this legendary stage, and the revival is Michelle Terry's farewell: her final role as the Globe's Artistic Director, a post she leaves at the end of 2027. Expect something called 'Epic Theatre', Brecht's signature style, focusing on analysis more than simple entertainment and using history as an analogy of the present. The 2026 run drew four- and five-star reviews, with The Telegraph calling it 'a gripping triumph' and Time Out finding Terry 'astonishingly good'.

The story is set during the Thirty Years' War, a religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants that shook Europe between 1618 and 1648, devastating the continent. By the time it ended, it had brought about dramatic political and territorial changes.

As war rages, resources grow ever scarcer, and hope becomes a luxury. Mother Courage struggles to pull her cart through a bare wasteland devastated by war. But she isn't just a mother. She's a profiteer and a survivor, a woman who has figured out how to make a living from suffering, and she'll sell anything and everything to keep her family going. Ultimately, victory costs her dear.

Expect live music, fierce humour and grim determination in this contemporary version of Brecht's classic protest play examining capitalism, survival and complicity. The magic is translated by Anna Jordan (Succession, Yen, Lost Atoms) and directed by Globe Associate Artist Elle While (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Richard III). Michelle Terry (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, Hamlet) plays the lead role. The creative team includes Composer James Maloney, Designer takis, and Movement Director and Choreographer Lucy Cullingford.

Dark and hedonistic, powerful and memorable, Mother Courage and Her Children tickets whisk you back into a frightening past to showcase the futility of war.

Playing at Globe Theatre

21 New Globe Walk, Bankside, SE1 9DT GB (venue info)

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