Salisbury International Arts Festival is back with an exciting 2026 line-up

Wiltshire Creative has announced an inspiring and varied programme as part of Salisbury International Arts Festival that organisers say will burst out onto the streets of Salisbury.

Rosa Corbishley, Executive Director, Wiltshire Creative, said: “The Salisbury International Arts Festival 2026 is not just a programme of events. It is a collective endeavour. It is artists and audiences. It is donors and volunteers. It is young people discovering their voice and seasoned performers returning to the stage. It is businesses, charities and public bodies working together because culture matters. We are so delighted and proud to be announcing another year of joy and life enhancing experiences.”

The centrepiece of the festival will be an immersive production of Romeo and Juliet. Marking 50 years of Salisbury Playhouse, it will turn the theatre and its environs into the streets of Verona. Drama, music and parkour collide in this promenade production, which will feature a professional cast alongside over 100 community performers. Romeo & Juliet will be directed by Artistic Director, Gareth Machin and designed by Zoe Squire. It will play at Salisbury Playhouse between 24 May and 7 June.

Gareth Machin, Artistic Director, Wiltshire Creative, said: “Salisbury International Arts Festival is a pivotal, joyful moment of the year. The spirit of the programme will be captured in our opening production, Romeo and Juliet. This bold new retelling of Shakespeare’s classic tale will be an opportunity to inspire our audiences with a thrilling, immersive experience performed by a large professional and community cast.”

After Romeo and Juliet, the festival spreads across the city with a varied programme of visiting artists from 16 June until 27 June. 

Fans of classical music will be able to enjoy the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra at Salisbury Cathedral conducted by Mark Wigglesworth. St Thomas’s Church will be filled with a richly woven programme of choral settings inspired by William Shakespeare’s timeless words in Continuum: Shakespeare in Song. 

At Salisbury Playhouse audiences can enjoy Carol Decker & T’Pau performing their forthcoming album ‘Be Wonderful’. Saxophonist and composer YolanDa Brown will celebrate Bob Marley’s 80th birthday and his enduring message of love, peace and unity across generations by reimagining his classics with jazz, reggae and soul.

At Salisbury Arts Centre Australia’s The Spooky Men’s Chorale will celebrate (and mock) masculinity. Presenter Matthew Stadlen will be back in conversation with renowned author Jonathan Freedland, award-winning journalist and author Fergal Keane, award-winning journalist, broadcaster, author and Orwell Prize winner Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, and cricket legend Graham Gooch. 

Lovers of comedy can catch Alfie Moore with his new show Acopalypse Now and the awardwinning Flat and the Curves with their Rosé Tinted musical comedy show. 

After their hugely successful show at Stonehenge last year (A Beautiful Thread: Thomas Hardy in Words and Music), Hambletts Productions return with BY A LADY: The Life & Wit of Jane Austen, a witty and delightful celebration of Austen’s sharp humour and timeless insight. The show features beautiful musical arrangements by David Le Page and narration by Rachel Parris (Austentatious, Live at the Apollo) and another guest narrator to be announced! 

Dance highlights include Lost Dog’s Juliet & Romeo, which imagines Shakespeare’s classic characters didn’t die and are instead middle-aged and working hard at living happily ever after. 

Olivier Award-winning Little Bulb will transform Salisbury Arts Centre into a dance floor, where you can try everything from ceilidh to disco. And after two years and nearing 100 performances, London City Ballet will return to the Festival before its international tour. 

Theatre fans will be treated to Sh!t Theatre and Soho Theatre’s production of Or What’s Left of Us, which is a true crime show about folk music and grief. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men will be back at Rack Close with one of Shakespeare’s most captivating and powerful plays, Othello. 

Poet P Burton-Morgan performs their solo poetry show Running Commentary, which promises to be a silly, sexy, sweaty romp. 

Children and their grown-ups can enjoy free entertainment with a Family Fiesta with a twist at Salisbury Playhouse and Rubbish Shakespeare Company’s The Story Forge, a hilariously unique theatrical adventure. 

The full Festival and Summer season is now open for booking. For more information and to book tickets, visit wiltshirecreative.co.uk/whats-on