Jonathan Ainscough is a writer, director, performer and facilitator working throughout the UK, Europe and around the world. He has a long-term association with the Royal Opera, having written and directed both A Letter from Ben (a play with music about Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears) and an adaptation of The Magic Flute involving over 1500 school children around the country; he has also written the librettos for two new operas – The Sapling and The Wish Thief – at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre. He is writing and directing a trilogy of new operatic family shows for Opera North, beginning with 2024’s The Big Opera Adventure and continuing with 2025’s The Big Opera Mystery, with the third instalment coming in Autumn 2027. He wrote the libretto for English Touring Opera’s The Vanishing Forest, which toured throughout the UK in 2025, and directed the Royal Northern College of Music’s first ever community opera, Silverwood in Summer 2024, performed by over 100 amateur and professional artists from across Greater Manchester. Other recent and forthcoming projects include ground-breaking pieces of ‘choral theatre’, in which live choirs and actors create immersive narrative experiences for audiences: he wrote and directed Voice of the Polar Night and The Bells at Midwinter for award-winning Manchester choir The Sunday Boys, alongside the murder mystery Swansong for Kantos Chamber Choir’s 2026/27 season.
Alongside his work as a writer and director, Jonathan devises and leads workshops for the Royal Opera, English National Opera and Streetwise Opera, and performs as an actor, singer and multi-instrumentalist, with recent performances including The Water Diviner’s Tale for Opera North, The Hypochondriac at the Sheffield Crucible and the Olivier-Award-winning Showstopper! The Improvised Musical in the West End and on tour.
