Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) Announces New UK Tour Company for 2026
The Olivier Award-winning comedy Pride and Prejudice (sort of) will open a new UK tour at Chelmsford Theatre on 11 September 2026, with an all-female cast taking on multiple roles across Jane Austen's story.
Written and directed by Isobel McArthur, the show reimagines Pride and Prejudice with five performers playing every character, accompanied by live music and pop songs including 'Young Hearts Run Free', 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow' and 'You're So Vain'. The production won both an Olivier Award and an Evening Standard Award. It originated in 2018 as a co-production between Tron Theatre Company and Blood of the Young before transferring to the West End's Criterion Theatre (WhatsOnStage).
Georgia May Firth leads the touring company as Elizabeth Bennet. Eva Hope plays Jane Bennet and Lady Catherine de Bourgh, while Julia Murray takes on Mrs Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. Roxanne Morgan plays Mary Bennet, Lydia Bennet and Mr Gardiner, and Phoebe Marshall plays Charlotte Lucas, Charles Bingley and Miss Bingley. Emily Cruz, Grace Farrell and Anastasia Sims-Chin join as covers (WhatsOnStage).
Behind the scenes, the creative team includes comedy staging by Jos Houben, set and costume design by Ana Inés Jabares-Pita, lighting by Ryan Joseph Stafford, choreography by Emily Jane Boyle and casting by Marc Frankum. Musical supervision and sound design are by Michael John McCarthy, with sound by Niamh Gaffney for Autograph (WhatsOnStage).
After Chelmsford, where the production runs from 11 to 19 September, the tour travels to 24 further venues. Confirmed stops include Worthing, Mold, Buxton, Liverpool, Belfast, Salisbury, Nottingham, Cambridge, Richmond, Darlington, Malvern, Poole, Guildford, Dublin, Bradford, Southampton, Oxford, Truro, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Glasgow, Blackpool and Horsham, with more dates to be announced (WhatsOnStage; official tour site).
The tour is enabled by Arts Council England's Incentivising Touring scheme, a funding initiative designed to help productions reach regional venues that might otherwise miss out on touring shows. The production's social media announcement in December 2025 credited the scheme for making the 2026 tour possible (Instagram).
The show is also travelling further afield. An Australian tour — the production's first — includes dates at Melbourne's Athenaeum Theatre from 18 June and the Sydney Opera House, with a cast featuring Amy Lehpamer, Zoe Ioannou and Kaori Maida-Judge. Ticketmaster Australia has promoted the production as coming "direct from the West End" (The Scoop AU; Ticketmaster AU via Facebook).
For audiences who have not seen it, the formula is straightforward: Austen's romantic plot, delivered at speed by a small company of women swapping characters mid-scene, with a pop soundtrack threaded through. The show's title carries its own asterisk and caveat — the "(sort of)" signalling that fidelity to the novel is not quite the point.
