National Theatre Live: Top Girls

National Theatre Live: The Deep Blue Sea

November 2016 •English

A flat in Ladbroke Grove, West London. 1952. When Hester Collyer is found by her neighbours in the aftermath of a failed suicide attempt, the story of her tempestuous affair with a former RAF pilot and the breakdown of her marriage to a High Court judge begins to emerge. With it comes a portrait of need, loneliness and long-repressed passion. Behind the fragile veneer of post-war civility burns a brutal sense of loss and longing.

RSC Live: King Lear

October 2016 •English

King Lear has ruled for many years. As age begins to overtake him, he decides to divide his kingdom amongst his children, living out his days without the burden of power. Misjudging his children’s loyalty and finding himself alone in the wilderness, he is left to confront the mistakes of a life that has brought him to this point. Antony Sher plays King Lear, one of the greatest parts written by Shakespeare in this, one of Shakespeare’s most epic and powerful plays.

Romance/Romance

February 1993 •English

This delightful pairing of one-act musicals, one classic and one modern, takes a comical and moving look at the mysteries of love. Act I, based on Schnitzler's The Little Comedy, is a delightful romp through the sexual ennui of turn-of-the-century Vienna, as two wealthy but bored socialites masquerade as impoverished bohemians seeking romance. Act II, based on the Jules Renard play Summer Share, explores modern affection and disaffection as two married couples share a summer house in the Hamptons. An Off-Off-Broadway sensation that successfully moved to Broadway, Romance/Romance is a charming and tuneful small-cast gem, here filmed live for television.

Ještěrka na slunci

February 2021 •Czech

National Theatre Live: No Man's Land

December 2016 •English

One summer's evening, two ageing writers, Hirst and Spooner, meet in a Hampstead pub and continue their drinking into the night at Hirst's stately house nearby. As the pair become increasingly inebriated, and their stories increasingly unbelievable, the lively conversation soon turns into a revealing power game, further complicated by the return home of two sinister younger men.

Allegiance

December 2016 •English

Inspired by the true-life experience of its star George Takei, Allegiance follows one family's extraordinary journey in this untold American story following the events of Pearl Harbor. Their loyalty was questioned, their freedom taken away, but their spirit could never be broken.

National Theatre Live : A Small Family Business

June 2014 •English

Alan Ayckbourn's riotous exposure of entrepreneurial greed returns to the National Theatre, where it premiered in 1987, winning the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Play.

RSC Live: The Tempest

January 2017 •English

On a distant island a man waits. Robbed of his position, power and wealth, his enemies have left him in isolation. But this is no ordinary man, and this no ordinary island. Prospero is a magician, able to control the very elements and bend nature to his will. When a sail appears on the horizon, he reaches out across the ocean to the ship that carries the men who wronged him. Creating a vast magical storm he wrecks the ship and washes his enemies up on the shore. When they wake they find themselves lost on a fantastical island where nothing is as it seems.

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).

National Theatre Live: Skylight

July 2014 •English

On a bitterly cold London evening, schoolteacher Kyra Hollis receives an unexpected visit from her former lover, Tom Sergeant, a successful and charismatic restaurateur whose wife has recently died. As the evening progresses, the two attempt to rekindle their once passionate relationship only to find themselves locked in a dangerous battle of opposing ideologies and mutual desires.

National Theatre Live: Follies

November 2017 •English

New York, 1971. There’s a party on the stage of the Weismann Theatre. Tomorrow the iconic building will be demolished. Thirty years after their final performance, the Follies girls gather to have a few drinks, sing a few songs and lie about themselves.

National Theatre Live: Dear England

January 2024 •English

The country that gave the world football has since delivered a painful pattern of loss. Why can’t England’s men win at their own game? With the worst track record for penalties in the world, Gareth Southgate knows he needs to open his mind and face up to the years of hurt, to take team and country back to the promised land.

Kiss Me, Kate

February 2003 •English

A pair of divorced actors are brought together to participate in a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew. Of course, the couple seem to act a great deal like the characters they play, and they must work together when mistaken identities get them mixed up with the mafia.

National Theatre Live: Timon of Athens

November 2012 •English

Based on Shakespeare’s play, Timon of Athens tells the tale of conspicuous consumption, debt and ruin. Timon of Athens is a wealthy friend to the rich and powerful. With his riches, he showers hospitality on the city’s elite. Unfortunately, his associates don’t lend him a helping hand when he accidentally spends more than he has on resources. After a final banquet, Timon is forced to withdraw himself to a wasteland, living off nothing but roots and cursing bankrupt Athens.

Company: A Musical Comedy

February 2008 •English

Set in modern upper-crust Manhattan, an exploration of love and commitment as seen through the eyes of a charming perpetual bachelor questioning his single state and his enthusiastically married, slightly envious friends.

Crash Landing On You: Live in Seoul

November 2023 •Korean

When South Korean heiress, Yoon Seri, unexpectedly crash-lands in North Korea after a paragliding mishap, her life takes an unforeseen turn.

National Theatre Live: Young Marx

December 2017 •English

1850, and Europe’s most feared terrorist is hiding in Dean Street, Soho. Broke, restless and horny, the thirty-two-year-old revolutionary is a frothing combination of intellectual brilliance, invective, satiric wit, and child-like emotional illiteracy. Creditors, spies, rival revolutionary factions and prospective seducers of his beautiful wife all circle like vultures. His writing blocked, his marriage dying, his friend Engels in despair at his wasted genius, his only hope is a job on the railway. But there’s still no one in the capital who can show you a better night on the piss than Karl Heinrich Marx.

National Theatre Live: Julius Caesar

March 2018 •English

Caesar returns in triumph to Rome and the people pour out of their homes to celebrate. Alarmed by the autocrat’s popularity, the educated élite conspire to bring him down. After his assassination, civil war erupts on the streets of the capital. Nicholas Hytner’s production will thrust the audience into the street party that greets Caesar’s return, the congress that witnesses his murder, the rally that assembles for his funeral and the chaos that explodes in its wake.

L'argent de la vieille

February 2024 •French

National Theatre Live: The Seagull

November 2022 •English

Emilia Clarke makes her West End debut as Nina in Anya Reiss’ unique 21st century modernisation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, with direction by Jamie Lloyd.