Hansard
by Simon Wood

Hansard; noun
The official report of all parliamentary debates.

See two-time Olivier Award winners, Lindsay Duncan (Birdman, About Time) and Alex Jennings (The Lady in the Van, The Queen), in this brand-new play by Simon Wood, broadcast live from the National Theatre in London.

It’s a summer’s morning in 1988 and Tory politician Robin Hesketh has returned home to the idyllic Cotswold house he shares with his wife of 30 years, Diana. But all is not as blissful as it seems. Diana has a stinking hangover, a fox is destroying the garden, and secrets are being dug up all over the place. As the day draws on, what starts as gentle ribbing and the familiar rhythms of marital scrapping quickly turns to blood-sport.

Don’t miss this witty and devastating portrait of the governing class, directed by Simon Godwin (NT Live: Antony & Cleopatra, Twelfth Night) and part of National Theatre Live’s 10^th birthday season.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
by William Shakespeare

‘The course of true love never did run smooth.’

A feuding fairy King and Queen of the forest cross paths with four runaway lovers and a troupe of actors trying to rehearse a play. As their dispute grows, the magical royal couple meddle with mortal lives leading to love triangles, mistaken identities and transformations… with hilarious, but dark consequences. 

Shakespeare’s most famous romantic comedy will be captured live from the Bridge Theatre in London. Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones), Oliver Chris (Green Wing, NT Live: Young Marx), David Moorst (NT Live: Allelujah!) and Hammed Animashaun (The Barber Shop Chronicles) lead the cast as Titania, Oberon, Puck and Bottom. 

Directed by Nicholas Hytner, this production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream will build on the success of his immersive staging of Julius Caesar (NT Live 2018). The Bridge Theatre will become a forest – a dream world of flying fairies, contagious fogs and moonlight revels, surrounded by a roving audience following the action on foot.

All About Eve

By Joseph L Mankiewicz

Adapted and directed for the stage by Ivo van Hove

Gillian Anderson (X-Files, NT Live: A Streetcar Named Desire) and Lily James (Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again) lead in All About Eve, broadcast live to cinemas from the West End in London.

All About Eve tells the story of Margo Channing. Legend. True star of the theatre. The spotlight is hers, always has been. But now there’s Eve. Her biggest fan. Young, beautiful Eve. The golden girl, the girl next door. But you know all about Eve…don’t you…?

Lifting the curtain on a world of jealousy and ambition, this new production, from one of the world’s most innovative theatre directors, Ivo van Hove (NT Live: A View from the Bridge), asks why our fascination with celebrity, youth and identity never seems to get old.

All About Eve is adapted by Ivo van Hove from the 1950 Twentieth Century Fox film by Joseph L Mankiewicz and the play “The Wisdom of Eve” by Mary Orr. Ivo van Hove directs this new stage version with set and lighting design from Jan Versweyveld, costume design by An D’Huys and music from double Mercury Prize-winner PJ Harvey, alongside Tom Gibbons’ sound design. Casting is by Julia Horan CDG. 

Photographs: Gillian Anderson by Pari Dukovic and Lily James by Perou. Design: Bob King Creative.

Small Island

adapted by Helen Edmundson

based on the novel by Andrea Levy

Andrea Levy’s Orange Prize-winning novel Small Island comes to life in an epic new theatre adaptation. Experience the play in cinemas, filmed live on stage as part of National Theatre Live’s 10^th birthday.

Small Island embarks on a journey from Jamaica to Britain, through the Second World War to 1948 – the year the HMT Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury, England. 

The play follows three intricately connected stories. Hortense yearns for a new life away from rural Jamaica, Gilbert dreams of becoming a lawyer, and Queenie longs to escape her Lincolnshire roots. Hope and humanity meet stubborn reality as the play traces the tangled history of Jamaica and the UK.

A company of 40 actors take to the stage of the National Theatre in London in this timely and moving story.

Simon Russell Beale plays William Shakespeare’s Richard II, broadcast live from the stage of the Almeida Theatre in London to cinemas. 

This visceral new production about the limits of power will be directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins, whose previous plays include Little Revolution at the Almeida and Absolute Hell at the National Theatre.

Richard II, King of England, is irresponsible, foolish and vain. His weak leadership sends his kingdom into disarray and his court into uproar. Seeing no other option but to seize power, the ambitious Bolingbroke challenges the throne and the king’s divine right to rule.
Simon Russell Beale returns to National Theatre Live screens following broadcasts of Timon of Athens and King Lear, and his recent role in the National Theatre’s critically acclaimed production of The Lehman Trilogy. 

Take a fresh look at Van Gogh through the legacy of the greatest private collector of the Dutch artist’s work: Helene Kröller-Müller (1869-1939), one of the first to recognize the genius of Van Gogh. In the early 20th century, Kröller-Müller amassed nearly 300 of Van Gogh’s paintings and drawings now housed at her namesake museum in Holland. The Basilica Palladina exhibition in Vicenza, “Amid Wheat Fields and Clouded Skies,” with 40 paintings and 85 drawings on loan from the Kröller-Müller Museum, lends the basis of this program, revealing Van Gogh’s art and his genius, while allowing audiences to understand the importance of drawing as part of his craft. Van Gogh’s seemingly instinctive canvases were the result of long, preparatory studies very rarely exhibited – not just sketches but stunning works of art in and of themselves, where the broken flow of lines that characterize the style and strokes in Van Gogh’s paintings can already be seen.