Why Dame Harriet Walter is playing Brutus at a Newquay school

Published On: 1 October 2026Last Updated: 1 October 2026By CornishStuff

📷 First Encounters: Julius Caesar in rehearsal, August 2026. Credit: Helen Maybanks

Rome has come to Newquay this week, by way of a women’s prison. And the woman leading the plot against Caesar is Olivier Award-winning actor Dame Harriet Walter.

The Royal Shakespeare Company and KPPL Productions have brought Phyllida Lloyd’s all-female production of Julius Caesar to Treviglas Academy in Newquay for a week-long residency, running from Monday 28 September to Friday 2 October 2026. Dame Harriet plays Brutus.

The school is one of the stops on a five-week tour of partner schools and communities across England. Alongside performances for students, the company is running workshops, debates and career talks, and a handful of students are getting a look at how a touring show works behind the scenes.

The last of three community performances takes place tonight (Thursday 1 October) at 7pm, followed by a post-show conversation. Booking is through Hall for Cornwall’s Julius Caesar page.

First Encounters: Julius Caesar rehearsal

📷First Encounters: Julius Caesar in rehearsal, August 2026. Credit: Helen Maybanks

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A Roman tragedy told from inside a prison

In this production, a group of female “prisoners” present a 90-minute version of Julius Caesar. As they act out Shakespeare’s story of leadership, control and corruption, their own fights for freedom and justice, and the power politics of prison life, come into harsh focus.

Caesar’s growing dominance in Rome puts democracy at risk. A group of conspirators recruits the popular senator Brutus to help assassinate him and reclaim the republic for its citizens. But as terror and chaos take hold, the play exposes how the violent overthrow of a tyrant rarely leads to a peaceful outcome.

It was first staged at the Donmar Warehouse in 2012, the opening instalment of Phyllida Lloyd’s all-female Shakespeare Trilogy. It has since been presented in London, New York, prisons and schools, and The Observer described it as “one of the most important theatrical events of the past twenty years”.

The new touring version is part of the RSC’s First Encounters with Shakespeare programme, which creates edited, 90-minute versions of the plays for young people who may be seeing Shakespeare performed for the first time.

Rooted in lived experience

The production renews Phyllida and KPPL Productions’ collaboration with Criminal Justice Associate Artist Rachel Frank and women from HMP New Hall, so that the prison setting is rooted in lived experience and real-world knowledge informs the workshops and post-show conversations.

The full company spent two days with the HMP New Hall drama group ahead of the tour. The women there are developing their own creative responses to the play, to be shared through the schools programme and with audiences in Stratford-upon-Avon.

📷First Encounters: Julius Caesar in rehearsal, August 2026. Credit: Helen Maybanks

Tonight’s performance and community conversation

Tonight’s 7pm performance will be followed by a community conversation bringing together members of the company, audiences and invited speakers from the local community and the criminal justice system.

The question on the table: what support and creative opportunities could be made available to young people who are at risk of engagement in the criminal justice system?

Two earlier community performances took place on Monday 28 and Tuesday 29 September.

📷First Encounters: Julius Caesar in rehearsal, August 2026. Credit: Helen Maybanks

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A week of workshops at Treviglas Academy

Treviglas Academy is an RSC Lead Associate School, working in a long-term partnership with the company that uses Shakespeare’s plays to unlock potential in young people. The RSC’s Associate Schools Programme was first piloted in 2006, and this year’s tour forms part of a wider programme marking 20 years of that partnership work in education.

During the residency, teachers from different subject areas at the school are adapting lessons to connect with the production and its themes. There are workshops with Year 10 GCSE Drama students and the Treviglas Academy Drama Club.

Members of the company are also taking part in specially curated debates, career talks and conversations with students about how the play speaks to today, and how young people might use their own voices to create change in their communities.

Up to four Treviglas students will shadow members of the touring production team, getting hands-on insight into backstage and technical careers.

Young Creatives

The school’s Young Creatives are exploring the production in more depth with RSC practitioners and members of the company, working out which parts of the play feel most relevant to them as they develop their own creative responses.

Their work will be shared at a Young Creatives Festival at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, on Saturday 21 November 2026. Curated by the RSC’s Youth Advisory Board, the festival will bring together 200 young people from across the tour, sharing creative work about the production and the kinds of change they want to see in their schools and communities.

📷First Encounters: Julius Caesar in rehearsal, August 2026. Credit: Helen Maybanks

What the RSC and Phyllida Lloyd say

Jacqui O’Hanlon, the RSC’s Deputy Executive Director and Director of Creative Learning and Engagement, said: “We are incredibly proud of the work we have undertaken in collaboration with extraordinary teachers, young people and partner theatres over the past 20 years. They have irrevocably changed our understanding of the value of Shakespeare’s work in education.

“We now have a 20-year evidence base that describes the very real difference that an arts rich education makes to a child’s life and learning outcomes. All children should have this entitlement, but all children don’t. Where a child lives and the kind of school they go to is still the greatest predictor of whether they will get access to high quality arts experiences, with all the benefits they bring.”

Director Phyllida Lloyd said: “Our pledge with Harriet to take Julius Caesar into schools marks our belief that young people deserve world-class theatre, the absolute best of the best. If they cannot afford to come to us, we are coming to them.

“In our own communities, many of the themes we explored in 2012 (unheard women’s voices, the pressures on young men and the manipulating power of social media) seem ever more in need of attention. If there is a play for today, to travel the country and inspire the young voices of the future, this is the one.”

She added that the co-production brings together three communities: “a remarkable cast of actors led by Dame Harriet Walter, a group of women in HMP New Hall and young people in schools across the country. Our mission is to use Julius Caesar to inspire unheard voices to ring out and create change, each of us students of the other.”

📷First Encounters: Julius Caesar in rehearsal, August 2026. Credit: Helen Maybanks

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Cast and creative team

Joining Dame Harriet are original company members Jackie Clune as Julius Caesar, Leah Harvey as Mark Antony, Jennifer Joseph as Trebonius, Jenny Jules as Cassius and Carolina Valdés as Casca.

They are joined by Kosar Ali as Calpurnia, Metellus Cimber and Pindarus, Shona Babayemi as Cinna the Conspirator, Darcy Dixon as Lucius, Shalisha James-Davis as Portia and Octavius, and Siân Stephens as the Soothsayer.

The production is directed by Phyllida Lloyd, with set and costume design by Bunny Christie, lighting design by Zeynep Kepekli, original sound design by Tom Gibbons, sound design by Pete Malkin, original movement direction by Ann Yee, movement direction by Carolina Valdés, fight direction by Kate Waters, casting by Matthew Dewsbury CDG, original casting by Anne McNulty and Vicky Richardson, and voice and text work by Barbara Houseman. The associate director is Jordana Golbourn, the associate set designer is Reiltin Hart, and the associate costume designer is Deborah Andrews.

📷First Encounters: Julius Caesar in rehearsal, August 2026. Credit: Helen Maybanks

Listings and tour dates

Venue: Treviglas Academy, Bradley Road, Newquay TR7 3JN
Residency: Monday 28 September to Friday 2 October 2026
Final community performance: Thursday 1 October, 7pm, with a post-show conversation straight after
Booking: RSC First Encounters: Julius Caesar at Hall for Cornwall
Age recommendation: 12+
Running time: approximately 90 minutes

Where the tour goes next

Ormiston Bushfield Academy, Peterborough: 21 to 25 September
Treviglas Academy, Newquay: 28 September to 2 October
Dixons Cottingley Academy, Bradford: 5 to 9 October
Bluecoat Beechdale Academy, Nottingham: 12 to 16 October
St Mary’s Catholic Academy, Blackpool: 19 to 23 October

The tour is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, and by Backstage Trust, CHK Foundation and Miranda Curtis CMG.

After the schools, the production moves to The Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon, where it runs from Thursday 5 to Saturday 28 November 2026.