National Theatre Live: The Habit of Art

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.

2010-04-22 | en

Som ni vill ha det

A production of Shakespeare's "As You Like It" filmed for television. After the overthrowing of the old duke by his tyrannical brother, the duke's daughter Rosalind disguises herself as a man and sets out to find her banished father while also counselling her clumsy suitor Orlando in the art of wooing.

1986-02-17 | sv

Get Over It

When Berke Landers, a popular high school basketball star, gets dumped by his life-long girlfriend, Allison, he soon begins to lose it. But with the help of his best friend Felix's sister Kelly, he follows his ex into the school's spring musical. Thus ensues a love triangle loosely based upon Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", where Berke is only to find himself getting over Allison and beginning to fall for Kelly.

2001-03-08 | en

National Theatre Live: Prima Facie

Tessa is a young, brilliant barrister. From working class origins, she has reached the top of her game. An unexpected event forces her to confront the lines where the patriarchal power of the law, burden of proof and morals diverge.

2022-07-21 | en

National Theatre Live: No Man's Land

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.

2016-12-15 | en

Night Is Short, Walk On Girl

As a group of university students go out for a night on the town, a sophomore known only as "The Girl with Black Hair" experiences a series of surreal encounters with the local nightlife – all the while unaware of the romantic longings of "Senpai", a senior student who has been creating increasingly fantastic and contrived reasons to run into her in an effort to win her heart.

2017-04-07 | ja

Where the Forest Thickens

A fusion of film and theatre based on the play of the same title by Micomicon. The film shows the play and its creative process. After her mother's death, Antonia finds a box which takes her and her daughter on a trip through Europe to former Yugoslavia. Remembrance, exhumations and wars. Life will not be the same.

2017-10-25 | es

National Theatre Live: Phaedra

After years of fierce focus on her political career, a politician turns her attention to her personal life. The reappearance of a figure from her past shakes the foundations of her house and the beliefs that have underpinned her power. As buried lust and loneliness surge to the surface, her actions threaten to destroy everything she has built.

2023-03-01 | en

The Glass Menagerie

An aging Southern Belle makes life horrible for her ambitious son and crippled daughter because of her dreams of what life should be.

1966-12-08 | en

Rozmarné léto

1962-05-24 | cs

Kavkazský křídový kruh

1962-07-19 | cs

National Theatre Archive: Mosquitoes

In 2008, as the Large Hadron Collider searches for the Higgs boson, tragedy throws two sisters together. The collision threatens them all with chaos. Olivia Colman and Olivia Williams play the sisters in this drama from writer Lucy Kirkwood.

2017-09-26 | en

Henry VIII - Live at Shakespeare's Globe

The Tudor Court is locked in a power struggle between its nobles and the Machiavellian Cardinal Wolsey, the King's first minister and the country's most conspicuous symbol of Catholic power. Wolsey's ambition knows no bounds and when his chief ally, Queen Katherine, interferes in the King's romance with Ann Bullen, he brings ruin upon himself, the Queen and centuries of English obedience to Rome.

2010-05-15 | en

Doctor Faustus - Live at Shakespeare's Globe

Doctor Faustus is Christopher Marlowe's most renowned and controversial work. Famous for being the first dramatised version of the Faustus tale, the play depicts the sinister aftermath of Faustus's decision to sell his soul to the Devil's henchman in exchange for power and knowledge. In the first-ever staging of this menacing drama at the Globe Theatre, Matthew Dunster's production features Paul Hilton as the arrogant, power-hungry Faustus and Arthur Darvill as the sardonic Mephistopheles, and includes several impressive magical stunts along the way.

2012-10-24 | en

Rent

Loosely based on Giacomo Puccini’s opera La Bohème, Rent features book, music, and lyrics by Jonathan Larson. Manchester's Hope Mill Theatre brings a new live production of Rent directly to your home with this streamed performance filmed during the live run.

2020-11-27 | en

Allegiance

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.

2016-12-13 | en

Hamlet at Elsinore

The ghost of the King of Denmark tells his son Hamlet to avenge his murder by killing the new king, Hamlet's uncle. Hamlet feigns madness, contemplates life and death, and seeks revenge. His uncle, fearing for his life, also devises plots to kill Hamlet. An historic BBC production taped on location in and around Kronborg castle in Elsinore (Denmark), in which the play is set.

1964-04-15 | en

National Theatre Live: Faith, Hope & Charity

In a run-down community hall on the edge of town, a woman has been cooking lunch for those in need. A choir is starting up, run by a volunteer who’s looking for a new beginning. A mother is seeking help in her fight to keep her young daughter from being taken into care. An older man sits silently in the corner, the first to arrive, the last to leave. Outside the rain is falling. Alexander Zeldin’s new play is another uncompromising theatrical experience that goes to the heart of our uncertain times.

2019-10-08 | en

Actresses

Marcelline is an actress. Forty, single and childless, she begins rehearsals for Turgenev’s A Month in the Country. Denis, the director, admires her greatly and promises he’ll make her happy on stage — she will shine. But things don’t go to plan.

2007-12-26 | fr

RSC Live: Hamlet

Hamlet has the world at his feet. Young, wealthy and living a hedonistic life studying abroad. Then word reaches him that his father is dead. Returning home he finds his world is utterly changed, his certainties smashed and his home a foreign land. Struggling to understand his place in a new world order he faces a stark choice. Submit, or rage against the injustice of his new reality. Simon Godwin directs Paapa Essiedu as Hamlet in Shakespeare's searing tragedy. As relevant today as when it was written, Hamlet confronts each of us with the mirror of our own mortality in an imperfect world. Hamlet played in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon until throughout summer 2016.

2016-06-10 | en