Royal Shakespeare Company - Guided tours - 15-23 March 2025

Choose from one of our new Guided Tours including the Costume Tour, Theatre Tour and Ghost Tour for National Lottery players.

With our Costume Tour, get close up to our fabulous costumes and discover the expert tailoring and craft techniques that go into making them. You will be shown around our state-of-the-art Costume Workshop to see at first-hand how our costumes are made, from cutting, tailoring and stitching to finishing techniques such as dyeing, printing and beading. Then visit our Costume Hire at The Other Place to get close up to our gowns, crowns and many other items.

For our Theatre Tour, immerse yourself in the workings of theatre, with stories of people who shaped our unique history. We begin the story of the RSC in our Front of House areas, taking a look at the hidden history of the most-seen areas of the building and introducing you to the people and stories that made the RSC what it is today, from well-known performers to skilled craftspeople. You will also go behind the scenes and get up close to some of our costumes, with the chance to get hands on, try on some items of headwear - maybe a crown or a helmet? And explore our hair and make-up box.

And our new Ghost Tour will take you through some of the stories that have arisen during that 140+ years that there has been a theatre on our site in Stratford-upon-Avon, including ghostly exits and entrances, but also the history of theatre superstition. Once the building has closed to other visitors, you will visit the Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres and experience complete darkness, then move through to other parts of the buildings where visitors are normally not allowed to find out more about how we achieve some of the gory or ghostly effects in our performances.