Quentin Tarantino’s ‘swashbuckling’ play The Popinjay Cavalier set for West End premiere

The director’s first play – an 1830s ‘rambunctious comedy of deception and disguise’ – is planned for early 2027 opening in London Since Quentin Tarantino announced last year that he had written his first play, it has remained as mysterious as the contents of Marsellus Wallace’s briefcase in Pulp Fiction. But on Wednesday it was announced that the play, which Tarantino will also direct in London, is to be a “rambunctious comedy of deception and disguise” set in 1830s Europe. According to publicity material, The Popinjay Cavalier is inspired by the “swashbuckling epics of stage and screen” and is a “sweeping celebration of theatre and its heightened romance, told with Tarantino’s signature style and unmistakable wit”. Rumours recently circulated that the play would be a “classic British trouser-dropping” farce. The Popinjay Cavalier, presented by Sonia Friedman Productions and Sony Pictures Entertainment, will be developed this year with a planned opening date of early 2027 in a West End theatre yet to be announced. In an interview last year with the podcast The Church of Tarantino, the director confirmed that the play was “absolutely my next projectâ