Cyrano de Bergerac at a glance

Show
Cyrano de Bergerac
Venue
Noël Coward Theatre, West End
Address
St Martin's Lane, London WC2N 4AU
Nearest station
Leicester Square (2 min walk); Charing Cross (2 min walk)
Genre
Drama (romantic classic)
Running time
Approximately 3 hours, including one interval
Age guidance
12+ (under-16s must be accompanied; under-3s not admitted)
Dates
13 June – 5 September 2026
Schedule
Mon–Sat 7:30pm; matinees Wed and Sat 2pm
Price range
From £18 (up to £150)
Original play
Edmond Rostand (1897)
New version by
Simon Evans and Debris Stevenson
Director
Simon Evans

Expert Review: Cyrano de Bergerac at the Noël Coward Theatre

4.7
★★★★★

LTH Expert Rating

Reviewed by the London Theatre Hub editorial team. Last updated: 7 May 2026. Based on the RSC Swan Theatre production, autumn 2025.

The Verdict

Edmond Rostand's 1897 play has been produced in London more times than anyone can usefully count — Jamie Lloyd's 2019 version with James McAvoy set a high bar, Martin Crimp's translation received its own wave of acclaim, and the play has been a West End staple for over a century. Simon Evans's RSC production, which opened at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in October 2025, is something different again: not a radical deconstruction but a thorough reimagining in modern English, co-written with poet Debris Stevenson, that gives Cyrano's verbal extravagance a freshness it hasn't had in years. The Times called it "unusually enchanting." The Financial Times called it "glorious." Neither word is an exaggeration.

The production's dominance flows from Adrian Lester, who makes his RSC debut in the title role and gives a performance of thunderous charisma and deep feeling. Lester has been one of Britain's finest stage actors for three decades — his Henry V, his Othello — but critics who saw the Swan Theatre run suggested this may be his finest work yet. The comedy is impeccable: his Cyrano's duelling monologue, in which he improvises a rhyming ballad mid-swordfight, draws the kind of delighted, disbelieving laughter that only comes from watching virtuosity arrive disguised as simplicity. And when the emotion lands — in the balcony scene, in the final act's devastation — Lester makes you feel every year of Cyrano's silence.

Susannah Fielding's Roxane is more than the play usually allows: witty, bold, and entirely worthy of the man she loves without yet knowing it. Levi Brown's Christian, performing in his own West Midlands accent, is charming and self-aware rather than a simple foil. Evans's staging fills the space with energy, and Debris Stevenson's contribution to the adaptation — the distinctive metrical language she has shaped for Cyrano's lines — gives the familiar story an entirely new verbal texture. The result is a Cyrano that earns its place in the long tradition of productions of this play, and then some.

What Makes It Special

  • Adrian Lester's career-defining performance. Lester won his Olivier Award for Othello at the National Theatre. His Henry V for the RSC was considered one of the great Shakespearean performances of his generation. Critics who saw the Swan Theatre run placed this Cyrano alongside or above both. His RSC debut — at this stage of his career — produced something extraordinary.
  • A genuinely new adaptation. Simon Evans and Debris Stevenson's version doesn't just translate Rostand — it reimagines the language from the ground up, giving each character their own metrical register. Cyrano's verse is modern but heightened; Christian's is blunter; Roxane's breaks and reforms with her thinking. The result gives the famous set-pieces — the balcony scene, the duel ballad — an energy they rarely have in translation.
  • The RSC Swan's sold-out run as proof of concept. The Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon holds around 450 seats and sold out its entire run. That is not a guarantee of West End success — different scale, different audience — but it confirms that the production generates exceptional word of mouth. The Noël Coward Theatre holds 972: a step up in scale that the production's physical ambition should handle.
  • Susannah Fielding as a Roxane who earns equal billing. Fielding won the Ian Charleson Award — the prize for the best classical stage performance by an actor under 36 — for the Swan Theatre run. Her Roxane is described by critics as instantly charming, vibrant, and given genuine dramatic agency. She is not a prize to be won but a person making choices.
  • Levi Brown's Christian. Brown — nominated for Edinburgh TV Awards for This Town on BBC One — performs in his native Halesowen accent, which turns the standard romantic-lead role into something warmer and funnier. His Christian's clumsiness with words is endearing rather than dismissive, and his chemistry with both Lester and Fielding keeps the triangle alive.

You'll love it if you...

  • Want to see one of the great stage actors of this generation in the performance of his career
  • Love romantic drama that is also genuinely funny — this production earns both registers fully
  • Enjoyed previous productions of the play and want to see what a fresh adaptation does with the same material
  • Are interested in the power of language — a play about words, performed by people who understand them
  • Want a five-star RSC hit at West End prices that start as low as £18

It might not be for you if you...

  • Find three hours of romantic drama demanding — this is a long show and it earns every minute, but it requires commitment
  • Prefer Jamie Lloyd's deconstructed version of the play — this is a different aesthetic, more traditional in structure if not in language
  • Are sensitive to haze, strobe, gunfire audio, or strong language — all are present
  • Are bringing children under 12 — the themes and running time require maturity and stamina

Best for

  • Drama fans
  • Date night
  • RSC enthusiasts
  • Classic literature lovers
  • Adrian Lester fans
  • School groups (12+)

Not recommended for young children or those seeking shorter, lighter evenings.

Critical Reception

The RSC production received some of the strongest reviews of the 2025 theatrical season, with five stars from The Times and Financial Times and four from The Guardian and Telegraph. Critics were unanimous on Adrian Lester's performance and the freshness of the Evans/Stevenson adaptation. Verified ratings from the RSC Swan Theatre run:

  • The Times ★★★★★
  • Financial Times ★★★★★
  • The Guardian ★★★★
  • The Telegraph ★★★★
  • Mail on Sunday ★★★★★
  • All That Dazzles ★★★★★

Source: published reviews of the RSC Swan Theatre production, Stratford-upon-Avon, October–November 2025. The same cast and creative team transfer to the Noël Coward Theatre.

Everything You Need to Know

What happens in Cyrano de Bergerac?

Cyrano de Bergerac is a poet, soldier, philosopher, and duellist — one of the most brilliant men in Paris, and one of the most insecure. His nose, which is large enough to have become the defining fact of his public identity, has convinced him that he cannot be loved romantically. He maintains the performance of bravado — slashing wit, magnificent swordsmanship, outrageously extravagant self-mockery — and conceals, beneath it, a profound tenderness he believes he has no right to express.

The woman he loves

Roxane is Cyrano's cousin and childhood friend. She is bold, intelligent, and passionate about words — she falls in love with the man she believes to be expressing himself in the letters she receives, and it is language, not looks, that captures her. What she doesn't know is that the beautiful letters are Cyrano's. She thinks she loves Christian.

The arrangement

Christian de Neuvillette is a young soldier, handsome and kind but hopelessly inarticulate. He can feel everything Roxane deserves to hear and express none of it. Cyrano, who cannot bear to watch Roxane fall for a man who cannot honour her, makes a proposition: he will provide the words, Christian will provide the face. Together, they will give Roxane the man she deserves — or a reasonable facsimile. The balcony scene, in which Cyrano speaks from the darkness while Christian stands visible above, is the play's most celebrated sequence and one of the most beautiful scenes in dramatic literature.

War and consequence

The regiment is sent to war. Cyrano continues writing letters in Christian's name — daily letters, letters of such quality that Roxane travels to the front to find the man who writes them. When Christian, beginning to understand the situation's cruelty, tries to force Cyrano's hand, the action of the play accelerates toward its irreversible conclusion.

The final act

Years later. Roxane lives in a convent. Cyrano visits each week. The ending, which Rostand handles with an economy that makes the final revelation almost unbearable, brings the play's central question — whether love expressed too late is still love — to the only answer it can offer. It is one of the most emotionally devastating conclusions in the classical repertoire, and it arrives after three hours of comedy, swordplay, and poetry that make you entirely unprepared for it.