Scottish Theatre Highlights: September 2026

September brings a mix of dark drama, musicals and stories shaped by memory, displacement and survival, with offerings moving between classic retellings and contemporary work.

At Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre, things get sinister with The Silence of the Lambs (8-12 Sep), bringing the infamous Hannibal Lecter to the stage in an adaptation of the psychological thriller. For something more colourful, SIX the Musical returns (15-26 Sep), giving Henry VIII’s six wives the microphone in its all-singing reimagining of Tudor history. Meanwhile, the Lyceum welcomes The Tailor of Inverness (7-8 Sep), Matthew Zajac’s acclaimed one-man show tracing his Polish-Ukrainian father's journey through war and displacement. First premiered at the Fringe back in 2008, the production returns with a personal history still at its centre.

The Tailor of Inverness. Credit: Tim Morozzo

Meanwhile, Glasgow gets a dose of movement at Theatre Royal with Scottish Ballet’s Emergence (10-12 Sep), Crystal Pite’s swirling work in which dancers move as a shifting collective. Afterwards, the Tron Theatre shows Antigone (18 Sep-10 Oct), in which Sophocles’ tragedy gets a messy modern treatment in the aftermath of civil war.

Fresh from its Fringe run at the Traverse, The Singer comes to The Citz (15-19 Sep) and Dundee Rep (23-26 Sep). A gig-theatre piece with music by Scottish legend KT Tunstall, the show follows a deaf artist who sings in sign and a washed-up musician chasing a comeback. Also at Dundee Rep, A History of Paper (16-19 Sep) stars Alan Cumming and Shirley Henderson in a warm reflection on the fragments of paper that accumulate into a life.