National Theatre Live: The Fifth Step (2025)

Smalltown Boys

A young man seems to be dreaming of a reality different from the business he is about to take over and the married life that goes with it; he is drawn to the spicy life of a queer vaudeville troupe performing in his village.

Bänken

A gentleman joins two alcoholics on a bench.

Smiles of Sad Men

A writer gets into a rehab where he meets a lot of successful men who destroyed their lives with alcohol.

The Lost Weekend

Don Birnam, a long-time alcoholic, has been sober for ten days and appears to be over the worst... but his craving has just become more insidious. Evading a country weekend planned by his brother and girlfriend, he begins a four-day bender that just might be his last - one way or another.

National Theatre Live: Coriolanus

When an old adversary threatens Rome, the city calls once more on her hero and defender: Coriolanus. But he has enemies at home too. Famine threatens the city, the citizens’ hunger swells to an appetite for change, and on returning from the field Coriolanus must confront the march of realpolitik and the voice of an angry people.

All of Us Strangers

One night in his near-empty tower block in contemporary London, Adam has a chance encounter with a mysterious neighbor Harry, which punctures the rhythm of his everyday life.

National Theatre Live: Antigone

In the unstable aftermath of a civil war, Creon, the new King of Thebes, asserts his authority by forbidding anyone from honouring the death of the traitor Polyneices. But Antigone, Polyneices' sister, will not obey. When Creon's authority is challenged, a gripping conflict emerges between the power of an individual and the state. Polly Findlay's electric 2012 production brings Sophocles' tragedy into the modern world as a gripping political thriller.

The Mighty Angel

Jerzy is a writer and a heavy drinker. We meet him at the point when he believes that he can beat his addiction. He falls in love with a young girl and finally feels that he has got the person and the reason to live for. But soon he yields to his addiction.

Throat Song

In a small town in the Canadian Arctic, Ippik, a young Inuit woman, suffers in an abusive relationship. She starts to heal when she connects with other victims of violence and finds her voice.

Shakes the Clown

Shakes plods about his duties as party clown, and uses all of his free time getting seriously drunk. Binky, another clown, wins the spot on a local kiddie show, which depresses Shakes even more, and his boss threatens him with unemployment if he can't get his act under control.

All Things Fair

Stig is a 15-year-old pupil of 37-year-old teacher Viola. He is attracted by her beauty and maturity while she is drawn to him by his youth and innocence, a relief from her drunk and miserable husband.

Al Bab Ya Shabab

A satirical Kuwaiti comedy play, focusing on young people, their needs and the problems they are going through in their daily lives, and sometimes their rebellion against society to pay attention to their problems and seek a solution to them.

Marvin & Tige

Marvin, a heavy-drinking widower meets Tige, an 11-year-old orphan. With nowhere else to go, Tige moves in with Marvin and they develop a close friendship. Marvin wants to adopt Tige but knows that he is too poor to give him a good home. Then he discovers who Tige's father is a rich suburbanite who doesn't even know Tige exists. Should Marvin, and can he, give up the boy he loves, and who loves him, in favor of a stranger with the right genes and bank balance?

Go Brother!

Shi Miao hates her brother Shi Fen. So, she makes a birthday wish: She wants her brother gone. However, she did not expect the wish come true.

Trees Lounge

Tommy has lost his job, his love and his life. He lives in a small apartment above the Trees Lounge, a bar which he frequents along with a few other regulars without lives. He gets a job driving an ice cream truck and ends up getting involved with the seventeen-year-old niece of his ex-girlfriend. This gets him into serious trouble with her father.

Airport 1975

When an in-flight collision incapacitates the pilots of an airplane bound for Los Angeles, stewardess Nancy Pryor is forced to take over the controls. From the ground, her boyfriend Alan Murdock, a retired test pilot, tries to talk her through piloting and landing the 747 aircraft. Worse yet, the anxious passengers — among which are a noisy nun and a cranky man — are aggravating the already tense atmosphere.

Brideshead Revisited

Artist Charles Ryder runs into aristocrat Julia Flyte and recalls his friendship with her eccentric family prior to the outbreak of the Second World War.

Without a Clue

Sherlock Holmes is as dashing as ever, but with a little secret: Dr. Watson is the brains behind the operation. When Reginald Kincaid, the actor he has hired to play Holmes becomes insufferable, Watson fires him and tries to go out on his own, but finds that he has done too good a job building Holmes up in the public's mind.

Dalecarlians

Mia returns from Stockholm to her parents' home in a small town in Dalecarlia (Dalarna) to celebrate her father's 70th birthday. Her elder sisters Eivor and Gunilla welcome her, but their different lifestyles prevent them from really communicating. The tension builds, and the party that should be a celebration turns out to be a turning point for the family and their friends

Clean and Sober

Hotshot real estate salesman Daryl has a bad cocaine habit. After embezzling his company's money, he wakes up next to a girl who overdosed. To hide from the police, he checks into a rehabilitation program guaranteeing anonymity. Under the mentorship of counselor Craig, Daryl accepts that he has a substance abuse problem. As he falls in love with fellow patient Charlie, Daryl begins committing to a newly sober life.

Cowboys

Six men, one woman (and her brother) come together with one goal - to make the play. It would be probably another common story that this theater group is composed of anti-heroes who float lost in time and space, in a town where it seems that the sun sets in the east. Led by Sasha, a director who has recently returned to his hometown, this group of socially neadaptiranih amateurs starting the fight to their demons and the prejudices that surround them in the society. For dramaturgical template selection western and riding on stereotypes of the genre of the struggle between good and evil, the conflict between civilization and wilderness, the protagonists develop their life stories inevitably influencing and changing each other. Although, as time passes, the show looks increasingly like a mission impossible, almost all of its stakeholders is increasingly seen as a metaphor for their fate and get caught for it as the opportunity of a lifetime .

The Way Back

A former basketball all-star, who has lost his wife and family foundation in a struggle with addiction, attempts to regain his soul and salvation by becoming the coach of a disparate ethnically mixed high school basketball team at his alma mater.

The Primrose Path

Alcoholic playboy Wallace MacDonald (as Bruce Armstrong) would like to sober up and become more responsible, after a drinking accident causes him to cripple little brother Pat Moore (as Jimmy Armstrong). Still, the lure of liquor makes him to sneak drinks at home, and go out partying with carefree showgirl Clara Bow (as Marilyn Merrill). He's promised Ms. Bow he'll quit drinking and gambling. Further complicating Mr. MacDonald's life are the bad checks he's been accumulating. Nasty Stuart Holmes (as Tom Canfield) and Tom Santschi (as "Big Joe" Snead) force MacDonald to join their diamond smuggling racket, in lieu of payment.

You Kill Me

While drying out on the West Coast, an alcoholic hit man befriends a tart-tongued woman who might just come in handy when it's time for him to return to Buffalo and settle some old scores.

Bringing Out the Dead

Once called "Father Frank" for his efforts to rescue lives, Frank Pierce sees the ghosts of those he failed to save around every turn. He has tried everything he can to get fired, calling in sick, delaying taking calls where he might have to face one more victim he couldn't help, yet cannot quit the job on his own.

Der Prank - April, April!

A failed April Fool's joke by twelve-year-old Chinese guest student Xi Zhōu turns the lives of Lucas, who is the same age, and his family upside down.

Under Capricorn

A native Briton banished to Australia for murder, and his wife, Henrietta, the disturbed sister of the man he was convicted on killing, set out to help her conquer her demons and return her life to normal.

The Drunkard

A couple shelters an alcoholic haunted by his Republican past in their suburban home.

Once a Year Can't Hurt

It tells the story of a university student who makes a documentary to find out if Colombia is a country of drinkers or not. In the midst of everyday and comic situations, the young man will obtain interesting and entertaining material for his research.

Handsome Serge

After long absence, a man returns to his hometown only to find his best friend has become an alcoholic.

The Legend of Bagger Vance

World War I has left golfer Rannulph Junuh a poker-playing alcoholic, his perfect swing gone. Now, however, he needs to get it back to play in a tournament to save the financially ravaged golf course of a long-ago sweetheart. Help arrives in the form of mysterious caddy Bagger Vance.

PERSONA5 the Stage

Here is the long-awaited stage adaptation of Atlus' super popular young adult RPG series, Persona! In order to fulfill the "rehabilitation" imposed upon him and save people from the wicked desires of the world, the protagonist becomes a Phantom Thief of Hearts, but how will he change the hearts of corrupt adults? While this story overflows with mystery and thrills, there's also exhilarating action and a sensitive depiction of the psychology of a group of young men and women as they forge deep bonds of friendship and grow together as people. The first installment, performed in December 2019.

Into the Woods

In a woods filled with magic and fairy tale characters, a baker and his wife set out to end the curse put on them by their neighbor, a spiteful witch.

A Star Is Born

Esther Blodgett is just another starry-eyed farm kid trying to break into the movies. Waitressing at a Hollywood party, she catches the eye of her idol Norman Maine, is sent for a screen test, and before long attains stardom as newly minted Vicki Lester. She and Norman marry, though his career soon dwindles to nothing due to his chronic alcoholism.

The Grizzlies

In a small Arctic town struggling with the highest suicide rate in North America, a group of Inuit students' lives are transformed when they are introduced to the sport of lacrosse.

National Theatre Live: Phèdre

A new English adaptation of the classic French tragedy Phèdre by Jean Racine (1639-1699). It retells the ancient Greek tale of the wife of the Atenian King Theseus, who conceived a forbidden love for his son (by an earlier wife) Hyppolytus. All ends badly for all.

Pollock

In August of 1949, Life Magazine ran a banner headline that begged the question: "Jackson Pollock: Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" The film is a look back into the life of an extraordinary man, a man who has fittingly been called "an artist dedicated to concealment, a celebrity who nobody knew." As he struggled with self-doubt, engaging in a lonely tug-of-war between needing to express himself and wanting to shut the world out, Pollock began a downward spiral.

Angela's Ashes

An Irish Catholic family returns to 1930s Limerick after a child's death in America. The unemployed I.R.A. veteran father struggles with poverty, prejudice, and alcoholism as the family endures harsh slum conditions.

Dolores Claiborne

Dolores Claiborne was accused of killing her abusive husband twenty years ago, but the court's findings were inconclusive and she was allowed to walk free. Now she has been accused of killing her employer, Vera Donovan, and this time there is a witness who can place her at the scene of the crime. Things look bad for Dolores when her daughter Selena, a successful Manhattan magazine writer, returns to cover the story.

28 Days

After getting into a car accident while drunk on the day of her sister's wedding, Gwen Cummings is given a choice between prison or a rehab center. She chooses rehab, but is extremely resistant to taking part in any of the treatment programs they have to offer, refusing to admit that she has an alcohol addiction.

Factotum

This drama centers on Hank Chinaski, the fictional alter-ego of "Factotum" author Charles Bukowski, who wanders around Los Angeles, CA trying to live off jobs which don't interfere with his primary interest, which is writing. Along the way, he fends off the distractions offered by women, drinking and gambling.

Lotte

Lotte is impulsive, rough around the edges and leads a colourful life on the streets of Berlin, stumbling from man to man, flat to flat and bar to bar. A brief encounter with a young girl, Greta, turns her life upside down. Lotte realises she will not be able to run away this time.

National Theatre Live: Hangmen

In his small pub in the northern English town of Oldham, Harry is something of a local celebrity. But what's the second-best hangman in England to do on the day they've abolished hanging? Amongst the cub reporters and pub regulars dying to hear Harry's reaction to the news, his old assistant Syd and the peculiar Mooney lurk with very different motives for their visit.

Fat City

Two men, working as professional boxers, come to blows when their careers each begin to take opposite momentum.

How Dark the Nights Are on the Black Sea

In this farcical dark comedy/melodrama, Lena manages to lose her place at college by virtue of throwing a minor hissy-fit when she catches her erstwhile boyfriend in bed with another girl. Instead of penalizing the boy for his behavior, Lena gets stuck with a court appearance and must pay a small fine, in addition to losing a boyfriend, her college career, and an apartment. Lena belongs to a film club which occasionally hands out awards, and the membership of it decides to send her into the Russian hinterlands to hand out an award to an obscure filmmaker. Throughout the film, Lena has been associated with a bizarre con man named Stepanych who, when his cons fall through, comes to her in the distant town she has gone to seeking her help in committing suicide.