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  • King Lear

    By William Shakespeare

    ★★★★★ ‘Ian McKellen reigns supreme in this triumphant production.’ (Daily Telegraph)

    Broadcast live from London’s West End, see Ian McKellen’s ‘extraordinarily moving portrayal’ (Independent) of King Lear in cinemas.

    Chichester Festival Theatre’s production received five-star reviews for its sell-out run, and transfers to the West End for a limited season.  Jonathan Munby directs this ‘nuanced and powerful’ (The Times) contemporary retelling of Shakespeare’s tender, violent, moving and shocking play.

    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.

    Show image photograph (Ian McKellen) by Andy Gotts

  • The Madness of George III

    by Alan Bennett

    Multi-award-winning drama The Madness of George III will be broadcast live to cinemas, in National Theatre Live’s first ever broadcast from Nottingham Playhouse.Written by one of Britain’s best-loved playwrights Alan Bennett (The History Boys, The Lady in the Van), this epic play was also adapted into a BAFTA Award-winning film following its premiere on stage in 1991.

    The cast of this new production includes Olivier Award-winners Mark Gatiss (Sherlock, Wolf Hall, NT Live Coriolanus) in the title role, and Adrian Scarborough (Gavin and Stacey, Upstairs Downstairs, After the Dance).

    It’s 1786 and King George III is the most powerful man in the world. But his behaviour is becoming increasingly erratic as he succumbs to fits of lunacy. With the King’s mind unravelling at a dramatic pace, ambitious politicians and the scheming Prince of Wales threaten to undermine the power of the Crown, and expose the fine line between a King and a man.

    Show image photograph (Mark Gatiss) by Creative by Wren

  • Antony & Cleopatra

    by William Shakespeare

    Broadcast live from the National Theatre, Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo play Shakespeare’s famous fated couple in his great tragedy of politics, passion and power.

    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.

    Director Simon Godwin returns to National Theatre Live screens with this hotly anticipated production, following broadcasts of Twelfth Night, Man and Superman and The Beaux’ Stratagem.

    Show image photograph (Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo) by Jason Bell

  • I’m Not Running by David Hare

    I’m Not Running is an explosive new play by David Hare, premiering at the National Theatre and broadcast live to cinemas.

    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?

    Hare was recently described by The Washington Post as ‘the premiere political dramatist writing in English’. His other work includes Pravda and Skylight, broadcast by National Theatre Live in 2014.