The Hit Play Returns!

After years of touring the world to critical acclaim, Globe Artistic Director Emma Rice and company return with a new revival of their hit play of love and betrayal. First staged in 2005, Tristan & Yseult combines uproarious comedy, live music, grand passion and bitter truths, rediscovering the wild romance of feudal Cornwall.

What's The Story?

Inspired by Wagner's epic opera Tristan und Isolde, Rice's vision for the play realises the composer's dream of integrating different styles of artwork, using music, humour and modern settings in the gradual build-up to catastrophe at its conclusion. A recording of the opera is put on a turntable at the start of the show, with the onstage band playing new compositions under the baton of Stu Barker.

King Mark of Cornwall has plenty to be worried about: his enemy Morholt of Ireland is threatening invasion, and a charismatic stranger, Tristan, has turned up at court. Together, they take on the fight and, on winning, form a strong bond. But when Mark asks Tristan to go to Ireland and bring back the beautiful Yseult to be his bride, Tristan quickly falls in love with the enigmatic princess. On their return to Cornwall, their affair, aided by a nefarious love potion, carries on, causing chaos in the lives and hearts of the three, with effects that will change all of them forever...