The Rainmaker

The Baby of Mâcon

September 1993 •English

Set halfway through the 17th century, a church play is performed for the benefit of the young aristocrat Cosimo. In the play, a grotesque old woman gives birth to a beautiful baby boy. The child's older sister is quick to exploit the situation, selling blessings from the baby, and even claiming she's the true mother by virgin birth. However, when she attempts to seduce the bishop's son, the Church exacts a terrible revenge.

Den starkare

August 2004 •Swedish

Two friends meet at a café. The silent unmarried Mr Y and the outspoken married Mr X. When Mr X realises that Mr Y was his rival for his wife's love they enter a battle of the minds where the stronger will win.

National Theatre Live: Hamlet

December 2010 •English

A 2010 broadcast of Hamlet returns to cinemas as part of the NT's 50th anniversary celebrations. Following his celebrated performances at the National Theatre in Burnt by the Sun, The Revenger's Tragedy, Philistines and The Man of Mode, Rory Kinnear plays Hamlet in a dynamic new production of Shakespeare’s complex and profound play about the human condition, directed by Nicholas Hytner. He is joined by Clare Higgins (Gertrude), Patrick Malahide (Claudius), David Calder (Polonius), James Laurenson (Ghost/Player King) and Ruth Negga (Ophelia).

Three Plays by Tennessee Williams

April 1958 •English

A presentation of Tennessee Williams' three one-act plays: "Moony's Kid Don't Cry", "The Last of My Solid Gold Watches", and "This Property Is Condemned".

The Turning Point

August 2009 •English

In The Turning Point, written by Michael Dobbs, Benedict Cumberbatch takes the role of Guy Burgess while Matthew Marsh plays the part of Winston Churchill. The play was part of the Sky Arts Theatre Live! Series, which won the Broadcasting Press Guild Best Multichannel Programme Award.

Phoebe in Wonderland

February 2008 •English

The fantastical tale of a little girl who won't - or can't - follow the rules. Confounded by her clashes with the rule-obsessed world around her, Phoebe seeks enlightenment from her unconventional drama teacher, even as her brilliant but anguished mother looks to Phoebe herself for inspiration.

National Theatre Live: The Habit of Art

April 2010 •English

National Theatre Live’s 2010 broadcast of Alan Bennett’s acclaimed play The Habit of Art, with Richard Griffiths, Alex Jennings and Frances de la Tour, returns to cinemas as part of the National Theatre's 50th anniversary celebrations. Benjamin Britten, sailing uncomfortably close to the wind with his new opera, Death in Venice, seeks advice from his former collaborator and friend, W H Auden. During this imagined meeting, their first for twenty-five years, they are observed and interrupted by, amongst others, their future biographer and a young man from the local bus station. Alan Bennett’s play is as much about the theatre as it is about poetry or music. It looks at the unsettling desires of two difficult men, and at the ethics of biography. It reflects on growing old, on creativity and inspiration, and on persisting when all passion’s spent: ultimately, on the habit of art.

Быстрее чем кролики (спектакль)

November 2005 •Russian

National Theatre Live: Medea

September 2014 •English

Medea is a wife and a mother. For the sake of her husband, Jason, she’s left her home and borne two sons in exile. But when he abandons his family for a new life, Medea faces banishment and separation from her children. Cornered, she begs for one day’s grace. It’s time enough. She exacts an appalling revenge and destroys everything she holds dear.

Anonymous

October 2011 •English

Set against the backdrop of the succession of Queen Elizabeth I, and the Essex Rebellion against her, the story advances the theory that it was in fact Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford who penned Shakespeare's plays.

A Play Entitled Sehnsucht

July 2012 •English

A hypnotic play going inside the mind of a mental astronomer

Convicted

November 1931 •English

A criminologist investigates the murder of a Broadway producer on an ocean liner.

L'Amour fou

January 1969 •French

A troubled marriage is tested by the couple's involvement in a theatrical production of Racine’s Andromaque.

Denial

April 2004 •English

The popular Arnold Wesker play filmed at the Bristol Old Vic.

Noël Coward's Present Laughter

November 2017 •English

A self-obsessed actor in the midst of a mid-life crisis juggles a fawning ingenue, a crazed playwright, his ex-wife, and the personal lives of his friends. Originally broadcast as an episode of the PBS series "Great Performances" (season 45, episode 4).

Where We Disappear

July 2019 •English

A story of survival about a woman's first night in a Soviet prison camp. After committing a crime to protect her son, Anastasia is sentenced to 12 years in a Soviet prison camp. Her arrival upsets the balance between the inmates. In a night of backstabbing and shifting alliances, she must find a way to escape and discover the hidden truth of her survival.

The Penthouse

October 1967 •English

A married man and his young mistress suffer sadistic torture when Tom, Dick and Harry invade their penthouse.

Audience

January 1990 •Czech

A recording of the legendary production “Audience“ from the Prague Drama Club with Josef Abrhám and Pavel Landovský. In 1975, Václav Havel worked as a labourer in the brewery in Trutnov; he could do nothing else. And it was here that he made perhaps his most successful one-act play, Audience, about the writer Ferdinand Vanek, who is invited by his superior to offer him a deal - a promotion to warehouse keeper, but in return has to inform on himself for StB reports.

Shimmer

October 1993 •English

The solo actor in Shimmer tells the story by becoming each character in turn. The play takes place in 1956, in a harsh Midwestern juvenile detention center, where two boys befriend each other.

Shirin

April 2009 •Persian

A hundred and fourteen famous Iranian theater and cinema actresses and a French star: mute spectators at a theatrical representation of Khosrow and Shirin, a Persian poem from the twelfth century, put on stage by Kiarostami. The development of the text -- long a favorite in Persia and the Middle East -- remains invisible to the viewer of the film, the whole story is told by the faces of the women watching the show.