The King's Ransom Tickets in London at the Donmar Warehouse
The King's Ransom is a new play by Stuart Slade, directed by Matthew Dunster, and it plays at the Donmar Warehouse in Seven Dials from 5 December 2026 to 6 February 2027.
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We're refreshing this show's booking dates. Tickets are still on sale: use the calendar or the booking button for the latest performances.
Who's The King's Ransom For?
Anyone who books new writing early. It is a world premiere, on sale before a single person has seen it, and the first eleven performances are priced as previews.
Anyone who saw Dealer's Choice here in 2025. Matthew Dunster directed that, with Alfie Allen, Brendan Coyle, Hammed Animashaun and Daniel Lapaine, and he directs this.
Anyone planning the week between Christmas and New Year. It plays on 22, 28, 29 and 30 December, and on the afternoon of the 31st.
Not for you if you want a Christmas show. It sits in the Donmar's festive slot, and the subject is a plot to rob a grave. Under-10s are not admitted to the auditorium at all.
What Tickets Cost
Once the run is open, a seat costs £76, £59 or £30. During previews, from 5 to 15 December, the same three seats are £71, £54 and £25.
Which seats sit at which price is not published for this production. The Donmar rebuilds its auditorium for almost every play and issues a new seating and pricing plan with it, so a map taken from the last show in the building would be wrong here.
The Donmar charges £1.75 per booking. It is charged once per transaction rather than per ticket, so it is the same on six seats as on one.
About The King's Ransom at the Donmar Warehouse
Stuart Slade wrote BU21, which opened at Theatre503 in 2016 and transferred to the West End the following year, and Glee & Me, which won him the Bruntwood Prize Judges' Award in 2019. Matthew Dunster has four Olivier nominations and directed 2:22 A Ghost Story from its 2021 premiere.
He was last in this building in 2025, and three of that creative team return with him on this one: the lighting designer, the sound designer and the casting director.
Four things a booker usually has are missing: the cast, the running time, whether there is an interval, and the content guidance, which its own page marks as to be confirmed. Every production there gets guidance in the end, and it usually arrives during previews.
What's The King's Ransom About?
Memphis, 1977. An enigmatic criminal mastermind offers a small-time crook called Vince Black the opportunity of a lifetime, and Vince assembles a crew of misfits and dropouts to attempt the heist of the century: taking the body of Elvis Presley, stashing it in a chest freezer and collecting the ransom. It is billed as a Southern-fried dark comedy.
Something like it happened. Thirteen days after Elvis Presley died in August 1977, police made arrests at Forest Hill Cemetery in Memphis over a plot to take his body for ransom. The charges were dropped, and the lasting result was that the family moved him to Graceland, which is where the grave people queue to see has been ever since.
The play is inspired by that case rather than a dramatisation of it. The chest freezer and Vince Black have no counterpart in the record.
Performance Schedule
Monday to Saturday at 7:30pm, with Thursday and Saturday matinees at 2:30pm from 17 December. There is no Sunday performance at any point in the run, and no matinee at all during previews, including both Saturdays.
| Day | Matinee | Evening |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | - | 7:30pm |
| Tuesday | - | 7:30pm |
| Wednesday | - | 7:30pm |
| Thursday | 2:30pm | 7:30pm |
| Friday | - | 7:30pm |
| Saturday | 2:30pm | 7:30pm |
| Sunday | - | - |
Christmas and New Year depart from that in six places.
- Tuesday 22 December and Tuesday 29 December both add a 2:30pm matinee. Tuesday is not otherwise a matinee day.
- Wednesday 23 December is a matinee only, and that 2:30pm is the last performance before the break.
- There is no performance on 24, 25, 26 or 27 December.
- Thursday 31 December is a matinee only. There is no New Year's Eve evening performance.
- There is no performance on 1 January.
Two start times are also out of pattern. Wednesday 16 December goes up at 7pm, half an hour early, and Tuesday 19 January at 6:30pm, an hour early. Check the time printed on your ticket rather than assuming 7:30pm.
Best Seats for The King's Ransom
Two levels, Stalls and Circle, with the audience on three sides of the stage. The Stalls run A to D and the Circle runs A to C, which is what the Donmar means when it says nobody is more than four rows from an actor.
The seats to think twice about are the ones at the extreme ends of the wrap, where you curl furthest round the playing area and see the most of the actors' backs. On this production's own seating plan, the restricted-view flags fall there and nowhere else.
The Box Office does not sell a seat as restricted until the sightlines for that production have been confirmed, so a ticket bought months ahead cannot turn into a bad seat by surprise.
Level by level is in the Tickets and Best Seats tab.
Cast and Creative Team
No cast has been announced, so if a listings site is showing you a performer for this production, it did not come from the theatre.
Matthew Dunster directs. Anna Fleischle designs the set and Jean Chan the costumes, with lighting by Sally Ferguson, sound by Holly Khan and casting by Lotte Hines CDG. The company goes into the Cast and Creatives tab as soon as it is named.
Book Your The King's Ransom Tickets
Every date in the season is on sale, and the cheapest way in is a preview in the first eleven days.
The last performance before the break is an afternoon on 23 December, and the four days after it have no performance at all.
Book tickets • Call us on 020 7193 9050
FAQs
Nobody has been announced. The Donmar named the writer, the director and the design team when it announced its season in July 2026, and said casting would follow. It has not yet.
It is inspired by one. Men really were arrested at Forest Hill Cemetery in Memphis in August 1977, accused of plotting to take Elvis Presley's body for ransom, and the charges were dropped. The play is not a dramatisation of the case.
No. It plays the Donmar's Christmas and New Year slot, which is the only festive thing about it. It is billed as a dark comedy about stealing a corpse, and under-10s are not admitted to the auditorium.
Not published. It is a new play that has not been performed yet, so there is no running time to give until previews have run. The Donmar publishes one during the preview period.
Also not published. It decides whether a latecomer has any way back in, and the Donmar programmes plenty of straight-through work, so do not assume there is one.
The Donmar has not said. It is billed as a play rather than a musical, and whether any Presley recording or song is used in it has not been announced.
There is none for this production yet. Children under 10 cannot enter the auditorium at all, which is the theatre's own rule and applies here. The Donmar says most of its productions suit ages 14 and over and points you at the individual show, which has not said.
The Donmar's own page for the show says content guidance is to be confirmed. Every production there gets guidance covering smoke and flashing lights, with themes added where they apply, so expect it during previews.
There is no walking in at the start. You watch on a monitor in the Circle bar until the production allows a break, and on a play with no interval there may not be one at all. Whether this play has an interval has not been published.
Two. The captioned date is 25 January 2027, in the evening, and the audio described date is 30 January 2027, in the afternoon. Neither a BSL interpreted nor a relaxed performance is scheduled in this run.
Saturday 6 February 2027, and the whole run is already on sale. This is a fixed season rather than an open-ended booking period, so there is no extension to wait for.
Where to Sit for The King's Ransom
The Donmar rebuilds its auditorium for almost every production and publishes a new seating and pricing plan with each one, and the plan for this play is not the one the last two productions used. A specific seat number you have read against an earlier show does not carry across.
The Stalls. Four rows, A to D, wrapped round three sides of the playing area. Row A is the shortest row in the theatre and the rows widen as they go back. The seating here is benches, and people divide sharply on them: no armrests and no individual seat backs. Nothing in the Stalls is far from the stage.
The Circle. Three rows, A to C, with the same wrap, sitting over the back of the Stalls. Rows A and B run right across the front of the level. Row C has no centre section at all, only the two side blocks.
What to avoid. The extreme ends of the wrap on either level. That is where you sit furthest round the stage and see the most of the actors' backs, and on the plan for this production the restricted-view flags fall exactly there, with nothing at all on Circle row C. Left and right are as you face the stage.
Seats do get returned and re-released. Keeping an eye on the theatre's website is often a good idea. Sometimes these are restricted-view seats, which might be a little bit cheaper.
Which seats fall at £76, £59 and £30 is not published for this production.
Dates & tickets
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Getting to the Donmar Warehouse
The Donmar Warehouse is at 41 Earlham Street, Seven Dials, London WC2H 9LX. The entrance is easy to walk straight past: a small shop doorway with a neon sign above it, on the left as you come down Earlham Street from the Seven Dials junction, past the shopping mall entrances.
Covent Garden is about three minutes away on the Piccadilly line. Leicester Square is five, Tottenham Court Road and Holborn are eight, and Charing Cross is ten. No bus stops outside the theatre. They stop at Cambridge Circus, a few minutes up Earlham Street: the 14, 19, 24, 29, 38 and 176 by day, and the N5, N19, N20, N29, N38, N41 and N279 at night.
Arrive 15 to 20 minutes before, no later. It is a small building with a small entrance area and 251 seats plus sixteen standing places over two levels, so a sold-out performance takes a while to get in through one door.
Leave your seat once the play has started and you may have to wait to get back in, and you may not get your own seat back.
Accessible performances on this run are the captioned Monday 25 January 2027 at 7:30pm and the audio described Saturday 30 January 2027 at 2:30pm. No BSL or relaxed performance is scheduled. Booking those, and anything else you need on the night, is handled by the Donmar's own team rather than by us. Parking, the bars and where to eat nearby are in our Donmar Warehouse guide.
Address
41 Earlham Street, Seven Dials, London WC2H 9LX
Nearest Tube
Covent Garden
The King's Ransom Cast
Not announced. The season was announced in July 2026 with the creative team named and casting to follow, and no performer has been named since. The only character the Donmar has named is Vince Black, the small-time crook the story is built around.
The company goes here as soon as the Donmar announces it.
Creative team
Written by Stuart Slade. Directed by Matthew Dunster. Set by Anna Fleischle, costumes by Jean Chan, lighting by Sally Ferguson, sound by Holly Khan, casting by Lotte Hines CDG.
Stuart Slade
Born in Bristol, based in London, and Artistic Director of Kuleshov Theatre. His plays are Cans, at Theatre503 in 2014, which was nominated for two Offies; BU21, at Theatre503 in 2016 and at Trafalgar Studios in the West End the following year, about six young people after a terrorist attack in London; Glee & Me, at the Royal Exchange in Manchester in 2021, which won the Bruntwood Prize Judges' Award in 2019; and Reality, at the Royal Court.
Matthew Dunster
Four Olivier nominations, and a former actor who was Associate Director at the Young Vic and at Shakespeare's Globe. He directed 2:22 A Ghost Story from its 2021 premiere, and Martin McDonagh's Hangmen at Wyndham's Theatre, which brought him an Olivier nomination for Best Director and drew five Tony nominations on Broadway. Also The Pillowman, Shirley Valentine, Hedda and The Hunger Games.
His last production at the Donmar was Dealer's Choice, Patrick Marber's comedy about men making bad decisions in a basement, which ran here from April to June 2025 with Alfie Allen, Brendan Coyle, Hammed Animashaun and Daniel Lapaine.
The King's Ransom Reviews
Press night is Wednesday 16 December 2026. The reviews go here after that.
The performances from 5 to 15 December are previews, which is why they are cheaper. A preview is a full performance in front of a paying audience, and it is also the stretch where a new play is still being cut and changed, so what you see on 5 December will not be exactly what the critics see eleven days later.
The King's Ransom
Donmar Warehouse