A month of music at the Minack: May on the Cornish cliffs

There is a particular kind of evening you only get at the Minack. The sun slides behind Porthcurno, the sea turns the colour of old pewter, and the granite tiers begin to fill with people in fleeces and waterproofs, flasks tucked under arms, programmes folded against the breeze. Then the music starts, and for two hours nothing else quite exists.

May 2026 is shaping up to be one of the Minack’s busiest music months in recent memory. The theatre has lined up a run of concerts and shows that moves from classical violin to Irish folk, from sea shanties to arena-sized singer-songwriters, and finishes with one of the most talked-about musicals of the last decade. If you have been looking for a reason to head west, this is it.

📷Making a Killing

A month built around music

“May is a month of marvellous music, from classical to Celtic, musical theatre to shanties, and everything in-between,” the Minack team said in an email to subscribers this week. The programme closes with the smash-hit musical Come From Away, “a show set in a remote corner of Newfoundland, on the edge of the sea,” which, as they cheerfully point out, makes it “perfect for the Minack.”

They are not wrong. Half the pleasure of this theatre has always been the way a production seems to grow out of the cliffs themselves. A storm on stage borrows a real one out at sea. A love scene at dusk arrives with gulls wheeling overhead. Even the silences feel bigger.

And May, with its lengthening evenings and kinder weather, is arguably the best time to take a seat on those stone rows. The water warms up. The wildflowers on the cliffs come out. The audience stops needing three layers.

📷Passenger

The concerts

The month kicks off in a strikingly contemporary mood with Anna Phoebe, the violinist, composer and BBC Radio presenter whose work, according to the Minack’s own billing, “creates an immersive, powerful experience that bridges classical, electronic and cinematic realms.” Phoebe is one of those performers who has quietly become a household name for anyone paying attention to modern British classical music. Expect something closer to a soundscape than a recital.

Folk fans have plenty to choose from. Ranagri, the award-winning folk band pulling from both sides of the Irish Sea, bring a blend of voice, guitar, bouzouki, flute, whistles, harp and drums. On paper it sounds like too many instruments for one stage. In practice, they are one of the most quietly mesmerising live acts touring the UK right now.

The Trouble Notes take that folk instinct in a very different direction. Their show fuses cinematic folk, progressive rock and what the Minack calls “dynamic storytelling”, framing a night of music as a tale of resilience and hope. It is the kind of high-drama, wordless performance the cliffside amphitheatre was practically built for.

Closer to home, The Countrymen bring a Cornish sensibility to proceedings. A folk-rock harmony group performing original and contemporary songs, they draw their lyrics from Cornish life past and present, and temper the set with what the theatre describes as “light-hearted banter and back-stories to their songs.” For anyone who has ever sat in a Penwith pub on a wet winter evening, this will feel like coming home.

Then there is the one that will sell out first, if it has not already. Passenger, the multi-award-winning and multi-platinum-selling singer-songwriter otherwise known as Mike Rosenberg, plays what the Minack is billing as an exclusive gig. Rosenberg built his early career busking on streets much like the one down in Penzance. Watching him play the Minack, with the Atlantic as his backdrop, is the sort of full-circle moment that tends to stick with a person.

Gwenno, the Welsh and Cornish-language songwriter and producer, brings one of the most critically acclaimed acts on the British scene. Winner of the Welsh Music Prize in 2015 for her debut Y Dydd Olaf, and shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize in 2022 for her third album Tresor, Gwenno’s work has a strong connection to Kernow. Hearing her sing in Cornish, on a Cornish cliff, is as close to “right place, right artist” as the Minack ever gets.

Willy Mason rounds out the singer-songwriter side of the programme. Mason has, in the Minack’s phrasing, “become harder to define as the years go on,” his lyrics reflecting “the humanness of now and our steps toward transcendence.” Translated: he has grown into one of the most thoughtful voices of his generation, and he is very, very good at hushing a crowd.

📷Countrymen

The theatre

Music dominates the bill, but May would not feel like the Minack without at least one proper piece of theatre.

Making a Killing is returning to the Minack after its premiere run last year. Set in 1590s Nuremberg, the play follows executioner Frantz Schmidt as he faces “curses, corruption and a volatile new assistant.” The Minack promises “dark humour in a world where heads roll, literally and figuratively.” It was one of last season’s breakout successes, and the fact that it is back says everything.

Shantify is the wild card, and possibly the most purely fun night on the calendar. A crew of “West End Wonderboys” transform show tunes, rock classics and pop bangers into sea shanties. Their own self-promotion calls it “the hottest, fun-est, shanty-est show of the year.” Given the venue, and given the recent national appetite for anything involving a rousing chorus and a shared chorus line, it is hard to imagine a better pairing of show and setting.

📷The Trouble Notes

The closer

The month builds to Come From Away, and it is difficult to overstate how well suited this particular musical is to this particular theatre. The show tells the remarkable true story of the 7,000 air passengers grounded by the September 11 attacks, and the Newfoundland community of Gander that took them in. It is a story about strangers on an edge of the sea. The Minack is, itself, a place that feels like an edge of the sea. The fit is almost uncomfortable in how good it is.

Productions of Come From Away in traditional theatres have earned rave reviews and standing ovations from London to Toronto. Seeing it performed under open sky, with the Atlantic visible beyond the stage, is going to be something else entirely.

📷Ranagri

Practical notes

The Minack has reminded audiences that its 2026 season brochure is available to download directly from the theatre’s website, and that visitor tickets (for those who just want to see the theatre itself, rather than a performance) are bookable separately.

A few things worth knowing if you have not been before. Bring more layers than you think you need. The cliffs pick up a breeze even on warm evenings. Cushions and blankets are your friends. The stone tiers, charming as they are, are still stone. Arrive early enough to walk the cliff path around the theatre before the show. And check the forecast, but do not be put off by drizzle. Minack audiences are a resilient bunch, and there is something quietly magnificent about watching a show in a light Cornish mizzle.

If you can only manage one night in May, make it count. If you can manage several, the month has been put together with real care, and it rewards the full run.

Either way, book early. This one is going to fill up.

📷Ranagri

📷Anna Phoebe

📷Come From Away

📷Shantify

📷Willy Mason

📷Gwenno