National Theatre Live: Top Girls (2019)

The Last Five Years

An emotionally powerful and intimate show about two New Yorkers who fall in and out of love over the course of five years. The musical’s unconventional structure unfolds as Cathy tells her story in reverse, from the end of their turbulent relationship, whilst Jamie tells his story chronologically from the spark of their initial meeting. The two characters meet only once, at their wedding in the middle of the show. Now, this iconic musical returns to London in a bold new actor-musician production with the actors on stage at all times and playing the piano to add a new narrative dimension to the story, accompanied by a four piece band.

National Theatre Live: The Lehman Trilogy

On a cold September morning in 1844 a young man from Bavaria stands on a New York dockside. Dreaming of a new life in the new world. He is joined by his two brothers and an American epic begins. 163 years later, the firm they establish – Lehman Brothers – spectacularly collapses into bankruptcy, and triggers the largest financial crisis in history.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

RiffTrax Live: RAD

Teens! Bikes! Feathered Hair! Love and revenge! Leotards and acid-washed denim! It’s all here in the legendary Eighties BMX-racing action-drama-romance RAD! Join Mike, Bill and Kevin as they spin, flip and slow-bike-dance their way into your hearts, LIVE in theaters nationwide on August 17th! Don’t miss it, if you want to be RAD!

National Theatre Live: The Deep Blue Sea

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.

Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch

The comedic play tells the story of a Black preacher’s scheme to reclaim his inheritance and win back his church from a plantation owner.

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.

Waitress: The Musical

A waitress and expert pie-maker dreams of a way out of her small town and rocky marriage.

Private Lives

Elyot Chase and Amanda Prynne are glamorous, rich, reckless…and divorced. Five years later, their love for one another is unexpectedly rekindled when they take adjoining suites of a French hotel while honeymooning with their new spouses. This chance encounter instantly reignites their passion, and they fling themselves headlong into a whirlwind of love and lust once more, without a thought for partners present or turbulences past. This Chichester Festival Theatre production of Noël Coward’s Privates Lives was filmed live at London's Gielgud Theatre.

True West

A screenwriter gets conned out of selling a script to a Hollywood producer by his brother, who pitches his own idea for a movie. This video recording of the 1982 Steppenwolf Theatre Company production was later broadcast by PBS.

National Theatre Live: Straight Line Crazy

Ralph Fiennes leads the cast in David Hare’s blazing account of the most powerful man in New York, a master manipulator whose legacy changed the city forever. For forty uninterrupted years, Robert Moses exploited those in office through a mix of charm and intimidation. Motivated at first by a determination to improve the lives of New York City’s workers, he created parks, bridges and 627 miles of expressway to connect the people to the great outdoors. Faced with resistance by protest groups campaigning for a very different idea of what the city should become, will the weakness of democracy be exposed in the face of his charismatic conviction?

National Theatre Live: Othello

The Moorish general Othello is manipulated into thinking that his new wife Desdemona has been carrying on an affair with his lieutenant Michael Cassio when in reality it is all part of the scheme of a bitter ensign named Iago.

Hemmet

A satire of the welfare society showing the mechanical nature of the elderly care.

Gilda Live

Gilda Radner is recorded during a live comedy concert. Radner's classic characters are seen in sketches that are sometimes more risque than when they appeared on television. During her breaks, the character Father Guido Sarducci takes the stage.

Putting It Together

An all-star cast performs the music of one of the greatest composers of our time... Stephen Sondheim. Anxiously anticipated by the myriad fans of the legendary composer, Putting It Together marked the return of Carol Burnett to the Broadway musical stage for the first time in over 35 years. Stephen Sondheim has won a record seven Tony Awards for his songwriting, and the Pulitzer Prize for Sunday in the Park with George. His Broadway smash shows and movies include Gypsy, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Sweeney Todd, Dick Tracy, and West Side Story. This Cameron Mackintosh stage production was captured live in performance during its Broadway run and recorded in high definition with a widescreen format using ten cameras and over 40 microphones.

Revue Starlight ―The LIVE― #2 Transition

After the events of Revue Starlight ―The LIVE― #1 revival, Seiran General Arts Institute challenges Seisho Music Academy to a revue with the right to perform the play "Starlight" at stakes. Who will win this Cultural Exchange Program?

National Theatre Live: A View from the Bridge

The great Arthur Miller confronts the American dream in this dark and passionate tale. In Brooklyn, longshoreman Eddie Carbone welcomes his Sicilian cousins to the land of freedom. But when one of them falls for his beautiful niece, they discover that freedom comes at a price. Eddie’s jealous mistrust exposes a deep, unspeakable secret – one that drives him to commit the ultimate betrayal. The visionary Ivo van Hove directs this stunning production of Miller’s tragic masterpiece.

National Theatre Live: The Beaux Stratagem

The ‘Beaux’: Mr Aimwell and Mr Archer, two charming, dissolute young men who have blown their fortunes in giddy London. Shamed and debt-ridden, they flee to provincial Lichfield. Their ‘Stratagem’: to marry for money. Lodged at the local inn, posing as master and servant, they encounter a teeming variety of human obstacles: a crooked landlord, a fearsome highwayman, a fervent French Count, a maid on the make, a drunken husband, a furious butler, a natural healer and a strange, turbulent priest. But their greatest obstacle is love. When the Beaux meet their match in Dorinda and Mrs Sullen they are most at risk, for in love they might be truly discovered.

National Theater Live: The Crucible

A witch hunt is beginning in Arthur Miller's captivating parable of power with Erin Doherty (The Crown) and Brendan Cowell (Yerma). Raised to be seen but not heard, a group of young women in Salem suddenly find their words have an almighty power. As a climate of fear, vendetta and accusation spreads through the community, no one is safe from trial. Lindsey Turner (Hamlet) directs this contemporary new staging, design by Tony award winner Es Devlin. Captured live from the Olivier stage of the national theater.

Macbeth

Three witches tell the Scottish general Macbeth that he will be King of Scotland. Encouraged by his wife, Macbeth kills the king, becomes the new king, and kills more people out of paranoia. Civil war erupts to overthrow Macbeth, resulting in more death.

A Memory of Two Mondays

Workers in an auto parts warehouse in 1933 New York City inhabit a bleak, dead-end world in the depths of the Depression where, at least, they have jobs. Introduced by its playwright, Arthur Miller, it was the first in a series of NET Playhouse programs concerning life in America during the Depression years.

Dax igen

10 year anniversary revue for the Knäppupp company, performances of both old and new material.

National Theatre Live: Behind the Beautiful Forevers

India is surging with global ambition. But beyond the luxury hotels surrounding Mumbai airport lies a makeshift slum, full of people with plans of their own. Zehrunisa and her son Abdul aim to recycle enough rubbish to fund a proper house. Sunil, twelve and stunted, wants to eat until he’s as tall as Kalu the thief. Asha seeks to steal government anti-poverty funds to turn herself into a ‘first-class person’, while her daughter Manju intends to become the slum’s first female graduate. But their schemes are fragile; global recession threatens the garbage trade, and another slum-dweller is about to make an accusation that will destroy herself and shatter the neighbourhood.

National Theatre Live: John

Lloyd Newson interviewed more than 50 men asking them frank questions, initially about love and sex. One of those men was John.

National Theatre Live: Under Milk Wood

A community is sleeping. If you listen closely, you can hear their dreams. The retired sea captain yearning for his lost love. The landlady living in terror of her guests. A father who can no longer access his memories. A son in search of redemption. As they awake to boiled eggs and the postman, the residents of a small Welsh village juggle old secrets and new realities.

National Theatre Live: Antony & Cleopatra

Caesar and his assassins are dead. General Mark Antony now rules alongside his fellow defenders of Rome. But at the fringes of a war-torn empire the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra and Mark Antony have fallen fiercely in love. In a tragic fight between devotion and duty, obsession becomes a catalyst for war.

National Theatre Live: I'm Not Running

Pauline Gibson has spent her life as a doctor, the inspiring leader of a local health campaign. When she crosses paths with her old boyfriend, a stalwart loyalist in Labour Party politics, she’s faced with an agonising decision. What’s involved in sacrificing your private life and your piece of mind for something more than a single issue? Does she dare?

National Theatre Live: Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Marquise de Merteuil, former lover of Vicomte de Valmont, incites him to corrupt the innocent Cécile de Volanges before her wedding night, but Valmont has targeted the peerlessly virtuous and beautiful Madame de Tourvel.

Revue Starlight ―The LIVE― #4 Climax

At Seisho Music Academy's Actor Training Department, which Hikari Kagura has left, the days that Karen, Maya, Junna, Mahiru, Nana, Claudine, Futaba, and Kaoruko will spend together will soon come to an end. With graduation day just around the corner, the career paths that the nine have chosen for after graduation are varied as well. Difficult exams, advanced assignments, new environments, and the chance to show off their own skills... Everyone spends every day with as much anxiety as hope. Who is their true rival? What is it that they truly must fight against?? What awaits them in the Twilight Theater?! The climax is right up ahead. The curtain rises on the best Revue in history!

Alice in Wonderland

From the elaborate Broadway revival of the 1932 Eva Le Gallienne/Florida Friebus production comes a whimsical retelling of the Lewis Carroll classic.

National Theatre Live: Allelujah!

Filmed live at London’s Bridge Theatre during its limited run. The Beth, an old fashioned cradle-to-grave hospital serving a town in Yorkshire, is threatened with closure as part of an efficiency drive. A documentary crew, eager to capture its fight for survival, follows the daily struggle to find beds on the Dusty Springfield Geriatric Ward, and the triumphs of the old people’s choir.

National Theatre Live: Jane Eyre

After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meet the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Mr. Rochester. Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Mr. Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?

Sunday in the Park with George

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte by Georges Seurat is one of the great paintings of the world, and in "Sunday in the Park with George," book writer James Lapine and composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim bring a story based on the work brilliantly to life. While the painting depicts people gathered on an island in the Seine, the musical goes beyond simply describing their lives. It is an exploration of art, of love, of commitment. Seurat connected dots to create images; Lapine and Sondheim use connection as the heart of all our relationships. Winner of the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Originally broadcast as part of "American Playhouse" on PBS (season five, episode nineteen).

Come from Away

7,000 passengers are stranded in the small town of Gander, Newfoundland after all flights into the US are grounded on September 11, 2001. Filmed live on stage at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater in New York City.

Hamlet

From its sell-out run at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre comes a film version of this unique and critically acclaimed production of Hamlet with BAFTA-nominee Maxine Peake in the title role. This ground-breaking stage production, directed by Sarah Frankcom, was the Royal Exchange's fastest-selling show in a decade.

National Theatre Live: Everyman

Everyman is successful, popular and riding high when Death comes calling. He is forced to abandon the life he has built and embark on a last, frantic search to recruit a friend, anyone, to speak in his defence. But Death is close behind, and time is running out. One of the great primal, spiritual myths, Everyman asks whether it is only in death that we can understand our lives. A cornerstone of English drama since the 15th century, it now explodes onto the stage in a startling production with words by Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate, and movement by Javier De Frutos.

Anything Goes

When the S.S. American heads out to sea, etiquette and convention head out the portholes as two unlikely pairs set off on the course to true love... proving that sometimes destiny needs a little help from a crew of singing sailors, a comical disguise and some good old-fashioned blackmail. This hilarious musical romp across the Atlantic, directed by the multi-award-winning Broadway director and choreographer Kathleen Marshall, features Cole Porter’s joyful score, including "I Get A Kick Out of You," "You’re the Top" and the show-stopping "Anything Goes."

National Theatre Live: Barber Shop Chronicles

For generations, African men have gathered in barber shops to discuss the world. These are places where the banter can be barbed and the truth is always telling. Follow along as we leap from a barber shop in Peckham to Johannesburg, Harare, Kampala, Lagos and Accra over the course of a single day.

Poe the Musical

A new musical chronicling the life of America's great literary icon, Edgar Allan Poe, as he rises from the grave to reconcile his life and fix his tarnished legacy.

National Theatre Live: Man and Superman

Academy Award® nominee Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient, Schindler’s List, Oedipus at the National Theatre) plays Jack Tanner in this exhilarating reinvention of Shaw’s witty, provocative classic. Jack Tanner, celebrated radical thinker and rich bachelor, seems an unlikely choice as guardian to the alluring heiress, Ann. But she takes it in her assured stride and, despite the love of a poet, she decides to marry and tame this dazzling revolutionary. Tanner, appalled by the whiff of domesticity, is tipped off by his chauffeur and flees to Spain, where he is captured by bandits and meets The Devil. An extraordinary dream-debate, heaven versus hell, ensues. Following in hot pursuit, Ann is there when Tanner awakes, as fierce in her certainty as he is in his. A romantic comedy, an epic fairytale, a fiery philosophical debate, Man and Superman asks fundamental questions about how we live.

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.

Rent

The story of several friends in New York City facing financial poverty, homophobia, AIDS, and, of course, rent.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again

Sweethearts Brad and Janet, stuck with a flat tire during a storm, discover the eerie mansion of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a gender ambiguous scientist. As their innocence is lost, Brad and Janet meet a houseful of wild characters, including a rocking biker and a creepy butler. Through elaborate dances and rock songs, Frank-N-Furter unveils her latest creation: a muscular man named 'Rocky'.

National Theatre Live: Best of Enemies

In 1968 America, as two men fight to become the next president, all eyes are on the battle between two others: the cunningly conservative William F. Buckley Jr., and the unruly liberal Gore Vidal. During a new nightly television format, they debate the moral landscape of a shattered nation.

RiffTrax Live: Point Break

For our fifteenth year of RiffTrax Live, we've selected the 1990's cult classic about bank robbing, presidential masks, and surfing: Point Break! It was directed by Academy Award Winner Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) and stars Keanu Reeves (The Matrix, John Wick, Keanu), Patrick Swayze (Road House), and one of our all-time favorite character actors, Gary Busey (A Star Is Born, Predator 2). Mike, Kevin, and Bill will riff Point Break LIVE at the State Theatre in Minneapolis on July 27th, and the resulting hilarity will be broadcast to over 700 movie theaters across America on Thursday, August 8th with an encore on Tuesday, August 13th thanks to our partners at Fathom Events.

Stratford Festival: King John

When the King of France (Peter Hutt) demands that John (Tom McCamus) relinquish his crown in favor of his nephew, the young Prince Arthur, war is the inevitable result. Excommunication, attempted atrocity, rebellion and assassination all contribute to a political turmoil and personal grief for a mother who has lost her son.