Tristan & Yseult

Tristan & Yseult retells the Cornish legend of Tristan and Yseult on stage. Emma Rice made the adaptation and directs it, working from a script by Carl Grose and Anna Maria Murphy. It is the show's original staging, credited to Kneehigh and the Emma Rice Company, and St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn presents it in its fall 2026 season.

The 2026 tour is produced by the Emma Rice Company and co-produced with Nottingham Playhouse and York Theatre Royal. The New York engagement lasts about three weeks. It is a return visit, since the production had its New York premiere at the same venue in 2014.

The tale begins with King Mark of Cornwall, who sends Tristan to bring home Yseult, an Irish bride-to-be. Tristan and Yseult fall in love, and their bond sets in motion events that are both tragic and heroic.

This staging places everything in a setting called the Club of the Unloved, and the legend is told from the point of view of the unloved.

The score blends new and found music, and a band plays it live. Stu Barker is credited as the composer for the 2026 tour. Live music was already part of the pitch for the earlier New York run, which was billed as a mix of live music and theatricality.

Low-fi aerial acrobatics sit alongside the live band, and the staging also uses haze and fire. The Club of the Unloved gives the evening its frame.

Kneehigh and Emma Rice first produced the show in 2003, outdoors at Restormel Castle in Cornwall and at Rufford Abbey in Nottinghamshire. It played the Minack Theatre in Porthcurno in 2004. In 2005 it moved indoors, in a version made for the National Theatre's Cottesloe. St. Ann's Warehouse hosted the New York premiere in 2014.

Mike Shepherd founded Kneehigh in Cornwall in 1980, and the company announced on June 3, 2021 that it would close. The 2026 tour is reported to be the first staging of this production since 2017. It began with previews at Theatre Royal Bath on September 11, 2026, and reaches Brooklyn in November.