Struggling theatres must ‘programme their way out’, says Young Vic director

Theatres facing financial difficulty can only prosper by “programming their way out of it”, according to the Young Vic artistic director, Nadia Fall, who has announces her new slate of shows, including an anti-Trump musical version of Thelma & Louise.

Fall, who took the helm at the Young Vic in 2025 and oversaw staff cuts after a £500,000 deficit in the last financial year, said theatres must put on unmissable productions in order to balance the books.

She said: “We need more investment in the arts: I need philanthropists and theatre supporters, but a big part where I do have agency is to programme my way out of it.”

One of the Young Vic’s big bets for this autumn is its musical of Thelma & Louise, based on the film directed by Ridley Scott, which was written by Callie Khouri,who is on board for Fall’s new production. Music comes from Grammy-winning Neko Case of the New Pornographers and it opens on 3 September.

Fall said her directorial debut, Brides, which was her first venture into cinema and premiered at Sundance, was inspired by the story of two women on a chaotic road trip as they attempt to escape violent domestic lives.

“I think it’s still a feminist story,” she said. “And if we’re looking at Trump’s America, the rights of a woman are going majorly backwards. So I think we do need a feminist musical, and hopefully it’ll bring in a crowd.”

Shedinburgh also opens in September and brings Edinburgh fringe performers, including Sara Pascoe and Inua Ellams, to the Young Vic in an immersive space. Shedinburgh began at the Edinburgh festival during the pandemic, championing experimental writing. It will be the first time it has come to London.

Other shows include Ben Whishaw and Kathryn Hunter starring in Eurotrash, an adaptation of Christian Kracht’s dark novel about a writer who takes his elderly mother on a road trip through the Swiss Alps. Fall said she was “really obsessed about taking risk, being artistically led and being international” and that the production ticked all those boxes.