RSC Live: Julius Caesar (2017)

The King Is Alive

Stranded in the heat of a barren African desert, eleven bus-passengers shelter in the remnants of an abandoned town. As rescue grows more remote by the day and anxiety deepens, an idea emerges: why not stage a play. However the choice of King Lear only manages to plunge this disparate group of travelers into turmoil as they struggle to overcome both nature's wrath and their own morality.

Othello

Noble Moroccan Othello finds his life with beautiful, fiercely loyal Desdemona thrown tragically out of balance when secretly jealous, scheming confidante Iago begins an insidious campaign of lies and treachery.

Macbeth

Macbeth, loyal to his crime boss, Duncan, is told by witches that he will one day take over. Driven by their prophecy, he and his wife plot to kill Duncan, and takes the leadership of the gang for himself. Maintaining his power will require more murder and violence, finally driving his surviving enemies to unite and destroy him. A sexy, high octane retelling of this classic story.

Romeo and Juliet

In this Broadway stage production, Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad take on the title characters in a modern adaptation of the timeless classic, Romeo and Juliet.

The Last Lear

The film starts with the veteran thespian Harish Mishra, he is gravely ill. The punishments of a film shoot have left the old man in a coma. His co-star, Shabnam, is wracked with worry, but their director, Siddharth, keeps strangely distant and refuses to visit his ailing star. In flashbacks, their story emerges.

My Own Private Idaho

In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare's "Henry IV," Mike Waters is a hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike's estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.

Chimes at Midnight

Henry IV usurps the English throne, sets in motion the factious War of the Roses and now faces a rebellion led by Northumberland scion Hotspur. Henry's heir, Prince Hal, is a ne'er-do-well carouser who drinks and causes mischief with his low-class friends, especially his rotund father figure, John Falstaff. To redeem his title, Hal may have to choose between allegiance to his real father and loyalty to his friend.

Throne of Blood

Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.

Omkara

Half-caste bandit Omkara Shukla abducts his lady love, Dolly Mishra, from her family. Thanks to his cleverness, he gets away with the kidnapping. A conspiracy, however, forms against him when he denies his right-hand man, Langda Tyagi, a promotion. Ultimately, this plot threatens not only his relationship with Dolly, but their lives and those of their associates as well.

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.

Othello

The evil Iago pretends to be friend of Othello in order to manipulate him to serve his own end in the film version of this Shakespeare classic.

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 (The Two Gentlemen of Verona 2014) 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.

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.

Maqbool

The Scottish tragedy 'Macbeth' set in the contemporary underworld of India's commercial capital; two corrupt, fortune telling policemen take the roles of the weird sisters, and "Duncan" is Abbaji, the head of a crime family.

Henry V

In the midst of the Hundred Years' War, the young King Henry V of England embarks on the conquest of France in 1415.

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

Two minor characters from the play "Hamlet" stumble around unaware of their scripted lives and unable to deviate from them.

King Lear

King Lear, old and tired, divides his kingdom among his daughters, giving great importance to their protestations of love for him. When Cordelia, youngest and most honest, refuses to idly flatter the old man in return for favor, he banishes her and turns for support to his remaining daughters. But Goneril and Regan have no love for him and instead plot to take all his power from him. In a parallel, Lear's loyal courtier Gloucester favors his illegitimate son Edmund after being told lies about his faithful son Edgar. Madness and tragedy befall both ill-starred fathers.

Julius Caesar

All-star cast glamorizes this lavish 1970 remake of the classic William Shakespeare play, which portrays the assassination of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March, and the resulting war between the faction led by the assassins and the faction led by Mark Anthony.

The Tempest

An adaptation of the play by William Shakespeare. Prospera (a female version of Shakespeare's Prospero) is the usurped ruler of Milan who has been banished to a mysterious island with her daughter. Using her magical powers, she draws her enemies to the island to exact her revenge.

Richard III

Having helped his brother King Edward IV take the throne of England, the jealous hunchback Richard, Duke of Gloucester, plots to seize power for himself. Masterfully deceiving and plotting against nearly everyone in the royal court, including his eventual wife, Lady Anne, and his brother George, Duke of Clarence, Richard orchestrates a bloody rise to power before finding all his gains jeopardized by those he betrayed.

As You Like It

Film version of Shakespeare's comedy of a young woman who disguises herself as a man to win the attention of the one she loves.

Romeo and Juliet

Young love is poisoned by a generations long feud between two noble families.

Othello

General Othello's marriage is destroyed when vengeful Ensign Iago convinces him that his new wife has been unfaithful.

Tempest

A sobering mid-life crisis fuels dissatisfaction in Philip Dimitrius, to the extent where the successful architect trades his marriage and career in for a spiritual exile on a remote Greek island where he hopes to conjure meaning into his life - trying the patience of his new girlfriend and angst-ridden teenage daughter.

RSC Live: Cymbeline

Britain is in crisis. An ineffectual Queen Cymbeline rules over a divided dystopian Britain. Consumed with grief at the death of two of her children, Cymbeline's judgment is clouded. When Innogen, the only living heir, marries her sweetheart Posthumus in secret, an enraged Cymbeline banishes him. Behind the throne, a power-hungry figure plots to seize power by murdering them both. In exile Innogen's husband is tricked into believing she has been unfaithful to him and in an act of impulsive jealousy begins a scheme to have her murdered. Warned of the danger, Innogen runs away from court in disguise and begins a journey fraught with danger that will eventually reunite Cymbeline with a long-lost heir and reconcile the young lovers.

This Is Hamlet

A mockumentary examination of Shakespeare's greatest tragedy using "breaking news" style interviews and commentary.

Anonymous

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.

King Lear

Fathom Events and BY Experience bring the Stratford Festival’s critically acclaimed performance of King Lear to cinemas for a memorable one-night event. An aging monarch resolves to divide his kingdom among his three daughters, with consequences he little expects. His reason shattered in the storm of violent emotion that ensues, with his very life hanging in the balance, Lear loses everything that has defined him as a king – and thereby discovers the essence of his own humanity.

The Sounding

On a remote island off the coast of Maine, Liv, after years of silence, begins to weave a language out of Shakespeare's words. A driven neurologist, brought to the island to protect her, commits her to a psychiatric hospital. She becomes a full-blow rebel in the hospital; her increasing violence threatens to keep her locked up for life as she fights for her voice and her freedom.

Henry VI Part 1

The life of King Henry the Sixth, in three parts.

Henry VI Part 2

The life of King Henry the Sixth, in three parts.

Henry VI Part 3

The life of King Henry the Sixth, in three parts.

Henry IV Part 1

Henry Bolingbroke has now been crowned King of England, but faces a rebellion headed by the embittered Earl of Northumberland and his son (nicknamed 'Hotspur'). Henry's son Hal, the Prince of Wales, has thrown over life at court in favour of heavy drinking and petty theft in the company of a debauched elderly knight, Sir John Falstaff. Hal must extricate himself from some legal problems, regain his father's good opinions and help suppress the uprising.

Henry IV Part 2

The death of King Henry the Fourth and the coronation of King Henry the Fifth.

National Theatre Live: King Lear

Considered by many to be the greatest tragedy ever written, King Lear sees two ageing fathers – one a King, one his courtier – reject the children who truly love them. Their blindness unleashes a tornado of pitiless ambition and treachery, as family and state are plunged into a violent power struggle with bitter ends.

The Scottish Play

A successful actress accepts the role of Lady Macbeth at a small New England theater, where she begins a flirtation with her charmingly awkward young director, and finds herself haunted by the ghost of William Shakespeare - who's keen to do some rewrites.

Othello

Even without the benefit of sound, the 1922 German adaptation of Othello seems more operatic than Shakespearean. This may be due to the casting of Emil Jannings, to whom restraint and subtlety were strangers. Werner Krauss, of Cabinet of Dr. Caligari fame, is on hand as the duplicitous Iago. Appearing as the unfortunate Desdemona is Lea Von Lenkeffy, better known as Lya de Putti. Produced on an elaborate scale, Othello may not be true to the letter of Shakespeare, but is undeniably a smorgasbord of visual delights.